I want to also point out something about FFX, and it's that the linearity makes sense in the context of the plot. It's a pilgrimage, there is only one path. Every summoner goes on it, just like Yuna and her party.
And the closer you get to the end, the more serious it gets! Arriving at Zanarkand was just a wow moment. It all lead to that. The fun in the beginning and the trepidation and trials in the middle.
And as you get closer to the end, and the party doesn’t want to have the same fate as the rest, the game ironically opens up with areas like the calm lands. It’s like symbolism of the party going down a different path than the rest
Eh the same is true of 13 though, you are actively on the run from the army until you touch down on Pulse. 13 has a lot of issues but justifying the linearity isn’t one of them
@Jacopo Cesselli see the "freedom" in x after you get the airship is just an illusion, the only reason to return to previous areas in x is for chests you may have missed, but none of it is actually required sooo having said that the "freedom" is more of a giant sandbox area then 13's and the sidequests in 13 on granpulse you are actually saving souls of the lcie that came before, every sidequest in 10 is about saving yourself and no one else really, and sides imo 13 is as great as 6 if not better story wise and character wise :D i often say its a 3d 3part remake of 6
My three-cents would be that it also has the benefit of not being overtly judgmental. Nothing is wrong with you if you prefer a normal straw instead of a silly-straw...and even if you prefer a silly-straw you can still enjoy a normal straw for what it's worth.
@Manannan anam I think if 13 followed through with versus but then again if It followed through XV would never would have happened. I think the chemistry between lightning and noctis would happen but I think it would only happen on dissidia only. To further build both games' story lines
@@superlombax1561 but if its like the other mc is done the quest on the other world and goes to another as a reward and meets the significant other in the other world. Like a complicated isekai that would mean the devs thought about it
X uses a very convenient trick that Tidus isn’t expected to know everything and his culture shock is the player’s - it makes the infodump a lot less... awkward, and they even play with it by withholding information from Tidus and the player about Yuna’s expected fate. FFX is just a better told story, and my guess is that the guff in XIII isn’t the linearity, but the pacing and the padding.
That's a really great point actually! We are learning everything with Tidus, whereas all the characters know everything at the start of XIII so the exposition feels tedious and unnatural
@@lugbzurg8987 Except Isekais are usually power fantasies, and the personed Isekaid usually get their way. Tidus gets called out multiple times, because he doesn't know the culture of the world he's brought on.
Stranger in a strange land, baybeeeee. One of the better renditions of it I’ve seen, though, tbh. And it helps a ton that the terminology isn’t bizarrely complex like XIII’s.
In FFX, you're just as confused as the protagonist. As it all unravels, the world is gradually fleshed out piece by piece, for us and tidus respectively. FFXIII on the other hand has everyone in on the story except for you, and it remains that way throughout. I really think that's the key difference.
Did you literally ever play Final Fantasy X? Since when do people treat Tidus respectfully for not knowing anything? Nevermind the fact that "Sin's toxin" is probably one of the weakest reasons as to why the remaining cast would ever believe Tidus' story about not knowing where he comes from. Considering the many broken and confused husks we've seen being the victims of the toxin, you'd think people with vast knowledge of how the world works would immediately recognize Tidus is not whatsoever affected by it and that something must be going on. Regardless of the fact that the entire cast is a bunch of blithering idiots, they also treat Tidus like a blithering idiot. Forcing him to bumble about all over the place, shaking their head everytime Tidus says something unbelievably fucking stupid or literally shoving him into elevators he shouldn't be on, so that he gets plot exposition on the way down. A literal child understands that maybe it's not such a great idea to go into the Cloyster of Trials since everybody around him makes such a big fuss not to *and tells him not to*, yet Tidus does. A literal child understands that when they say Auron reeks of death, they're not talking figuratively, yet Tidus still smells him like an actual buffoon. Equally, it's not difficult to understand that talking to someone about a certain person repeatedly after they've told you not to is probably a bad idea. None of these are Tidus "being as confused as the player". They are Tidus being an actual fucking moron. NOBODY in our side would struggle with these things. Hell, I almost gouged my own eyes out with how aggressive I facepalmed when after Tidus is rescued by Rikku and EXPLICITLY told by her NOT to tell anyone he comes from Zanarkand, he thinks it's probably a fantastic idea telling the very first people he meets after washing up (Wakka and the entire Aurochs roster) that he's the star player of the Zanarkand Abes, within the first 10 seconds of meeting them. It paints him as such an actual gigantic idiot that I'd think it must've been on purpose because no writer attempting to write a proxy protagonist would ever ask the player to identify with such a bumbling fucking buffoon within 20 minutes of the start of the game.
As the old saying goes: show, don't tell. I remember playing both these games for the first time. Within 15 minutes, I got a grasp of FF10. It SHOWED me what I needed to know - the main character, the basic premise, the main mystery, combat system, and the villain. FF13, on the other hand, felt like reading a textbook while trying to learn French at the same time.
I would say half is the jargon. You "felt like reading a textbook while trying to learn French at the same time" because the words used are different than what you are used-to. You ARE learning 'French'...in fact "l'Cie" looks a lot like French for "the sky"/"heaven" ("le ciel"). And I don't think that's a coincidence. Equating the words to simpler concepts (say, "holy magic") intuitively makes the story a lot simpler to understand. My first time playing the game (which I was borrowing from my brother's girlfriend) I was able to do that immediately and recognized in the first 15 minutes, to put it in more-familiar terms... you start as "Force-Sensitive" "Rebel Faction" trying to "Blow up the Death Star".
I mostly agree, but even the likes of Xenogears and Xenosaga, which you are almost guaranteed to not be able to follow along, were still very enjoyable.
RadiusZero my take is i play games for 2 reasons...great story or great gameplay loop. I can overlook one aspect if the other is airtight...such as the original Last of Us. I also don't mind if the story is mainly available in menus or item descriptions like dark souls or doom 2016, granted the gameplay loop is airtight. the gameplay in ff13 is beyond pointless. If all you need to do is set a paradigm and autoattack, you're spending more time watching than playing. FF7 remake got this right. Hopefully SE can stop fucking it up from this point on.
@@umbakarnask3844 How does one preach personal preference but then say that everyone who feels opposite is hateful? Are they not just expressing their own personal perspective?
@@OgaKunieda actually no, for me X is one of the worst FF 🙂 Character design and acting were awful, the story isn't engaging, the settings were dull. I struggled to finish that game 🤷
I think one thing worth mentioning is that in FFX, Tidus has zero knowledge of Spira. This results in all of these interactions with NPCs that end up educating Tidus AND the player on the world of Spira. In other words, they're taking advantage of Tidus' cluelessness as an opportunity to build the player's understanding of Spira through interactions with people in that world. The problem with XIII's story (and XV's as well, in my opinion) is that NOBODY really understands what's going on. Interactions with NPCs provide next to nothing regarding the world or story, and you're left with this weak-ass data log that is feeding you info through some 3rd person narrator. In both games, it all culminates in this "pulling back the curtain" sequence late in the game where everything is supposed to become clear to the player. FFX does this progressively, with Tidus realizing that Yuna is trying to sacrifice herself, realizing that his father is Sin, and that he is just a dream created by Yu Yevon. FFXIII, on the other hand, feels much more abrupt, and even when the "true villain" reveals himself late in the game, it just leaves you thinking to yourself "what the fuck is happening right now".
I agree. The main villain is introduces early in FF13 but just as the leader of the government and aside from a short section in the Datalog he is never mentioned again until shortly before you go fight him around 2/3 point of the game. And I liked him as a villain, but he showed up way too late in the game for me. The game really needed it's main antagonist to have more presence earlier on. And unlike the Black Waltzes, Gilgamesh, the Turks, Ultros, the Four Archfiends, and Seymour, the secondary antagonists are just forgettable.
Even as a huge fan of FFXV I will agree it suffers from the same "exposition" problems that FFXIII does. FFXV maybe isn't AS bad, but you still run into issues where you're like "Wait...who the fuck is Ravus? Oh okay he's Lunas brother. But wait why is he working with this emperor dude? Wait..what has the emperor been doing the entire game? Oh, the emperor is a fucking monster that we have to fight now". I love FFXV but I completely agree it gets convuleted real quick with very vague story exposition.
FFX and FFXIII are both guided tours, but X is a vacation, where XIII is a facility inspection. FFX says "Oh, we're just playing Tiddlywinks over here, wanna play?" where XIII feels like "This is the Tiddlywink sector, see Tiddlywink, under subsection NCC-1701-D for more information." I think the difference is, that S-E remembered they were making a Video Game when they were making FFX. There are all these little side activities to do and things that flesh out the world. While the normal video game suspensions of disbelief have to occur, the player doesn't mind these because its an open invitation. "Have fun play game." They didn't let the linearity get in the way of having fun.
So your complaint about ff13 is that the locations were too "run down" or just another guarded sector. But you understand the plot that they were being transported as branded to a place to kill them and you wanted it to look like paradise? You expected the heroes who were being chased by not only the army but the villains of the game to be able to walk into any city as wanted criminals free? And you understand in the ff13 universe l'cie are seen as monsters who are feared by the entire normal population right? You fall into the category of just another dumbass who payed no attention to the story but complains about things that make total sense. How the fuck you going play a ff game and not care about the story... That's retarded.
@ slayerr4365, Exactly... wrong my friend. You mentioned the very part of the game that unfortunately you yourself are not noticing made the game "bad." Yes the story forced the characters in 13 to become outcasts, so of course you cant have at a little 'fun' side quest here and they're since they're on the run, BUT that shouldn't stop SquareEnix themselves from find a way to incorporate that fun into said story, so in that way, SE shot themselves in the foot and basically thought as you did: "It doesn't fit the plot, the aesthetic, so yeah, no 'fun' for our characters," and in short, that unfortunately meant no fun for us playing the game and having major parts of it feel like a slog. The story concept was good, but SE's own execution of it as a fun video game for us to play, sucked. It could've been handled way better than it was is probably the general consensus of us who played the game.
I mean are you stupid or what? Not having side quests doesn't make it the bad game, (Thank ff15 for proving that by being a terrible game with hundreds of side quests) I simply said and stand by that one criticism you can have about the game is that there is not enough side content for a bit more character development. Saying that alone makes it a bad game or ruins the story is retarded. And to be quite honest even that point became regardless in the future with ff13x2 and ff13 LR, as a collection of games it gave everything the fans bitched and cried about. In x2 you can go to any place at any time thanks to time travel so kids shut up about saying linear. And LR is basically a side quest simulator with a tiny bit of story in there. As a series of games they gave everything the fans asked for. What other huge developers actually go out of there way to give exactly what fans complain about even though for the real fans it was never really a problem in the first place? This is why the final fantasy fanbase are just a bunch of cunts. They give so much more than any other company yet still somehow have the most kids bitching about whatever they do. You can't please 12 year olds.
To be honest, they actually had one giant wide open aspect they could have used to add as many fun side quests and minigames they wanted, and they never used it: The past. One of the things that FF13 does over and over again is to show us the memories of the cast members from happier times to rub in just how bad they are feeling after everything that's happened, so that's a wide open untapped source of fun in case they wanted to include some, just have character X remember playing minigame Y and then snap out of their reverie to deliver some more cringe worthy dialogue later on. =p Just Snow alone would be good for at least five! You just know he won the pie-eating contest.
X2 was shit though. took out a bunch of what made ffx awesome, and turned it into fapping material with no aeons, no team composition, no turn based strategic fighting, no real urgency to the plot, a downgraded version of the surroundings, no weapon building, no ... you get my point -.-
Derva Kommt von hinten I still find it fun to play, x2 that is. The creature creator adds another layer to it. Capturing and releasing. X is my game though. I can’t tell you how many times I have replayed it. Doing another run through right now with the plan to max everyone. 99k hp here we come.
I really didn't mind XIII's linearity as I get that it's because of their "fugitive" status. What I didn't like was how they shove the whole story so fast I'm choking. The lore of the Gods in XIII is amazing though. It's just they rush things up.
Except the _fugitive_ plot point in XIII doesn't even make sense, story-wise the only way folk can tell the cast are fugitives is by looking up the characters L'cie mark that's easily covered up by clothes and whatnot and until the party meets Hope's dad they weren't publicly reveled ad L'cies, so they had no reason whatsoever to keep a low profile up until then. There's even a point in which both Vanille and Sazh go to a carnival and make zero effort to hide themselves, and it's probably the worst level in the entire game because there's nothing to do in it (you can't talk to anyone, no mini-games, interactions, etc.) Also funny enough FFX has a similar plot point: there's a point in the game when the entire party are labeled as traitors and thus considered fugitives... but that does not mean that suddenly every level/area in the game from there on is devoid of any personality/interaction (mini-games, Npc/towns, and other events). Point is the game (XIII) handled the level design pretty badly and it had nothing to do with the characters being fugitives.
FFX allows you to BACKTRACK at any given point in the story once you finish Luca. You can literally run all the way back to Besaid if you want to. 13 just closes the door behind you with each new area.
You are also wanted in X. Yevon, which is basically the government as well as the main religious group, wants you dead for half of the story, but that doesn't stop the party from doing whatever they want.
I completely agree. I played X when I was only like ...idk, 10? 12? I may have missed some finer details as a kid but I understood the overall story and world. I tried to play XIII AS AN ADULT and I was so confused, I had no idea what was going on. The terminology in the game was so ridiculous, I felt like the writers were just trying to make themselves sound smart. The story jerked around and I couldn't finish the game. I had no feeling of connection to the characters, their purpose, the story or ultimately - the game's world. THAT is why I dislike XIII. The fact that it is linear has nothing to do with it. In fact, X is arguably my favorite FF title. A successful game needs to build the player's understanding of the world organically through the story and character interactions. A datalog is a piss poor attempt to cover up lack luster story and world building.
@@SamoIsKing A game shouldn't force you to read things that distract you from the game to get the story (especially when the dialogue just tells you exactly what was said or told in ff13 scenes) as in the game should be understandable as i play and watch the scenes. Tho im going to just say right now that i was like 15 when i first played ff13 and i totally understood what was going on tho maybe its cause im just good at comprehension than most ppl (?) idk. I honestly can't figure out the hate for the game's story (Just the first game. The other 2 are just bad.) The linearity is pretty fair point. The gameplay is nitpicky imo cause honestly anyone who says that ff13 is too ez then you either haven't played ff13 or just farmed to the point where you can libra and use auto to beat. I would just tell that person to actually play thru the game's story without farming cause its possible. Ive done it on 2nd and 3rd playthru.
Ezi Jackson its called good writing. You can explain the story through dialogue in 10 because it follows the “fish out of water” narrative, and the main protaganist isnt from that world, just as the player is. In 13 all the characters are from the same place, so it doesnt make sense if they explain whats going on to each other. Its like at the start of 7 where Barret is explaining to Cloud (who he thinks is ex-SOLDIER at the time) what a Mako reactor does. It doesnt make sense, its pointless exposition and its bad writing. XIII solved that problem by only having characters express their emotions, motivations and reactions and put the explanations in datalogs.
I first played ffx when i was 5 yr old and ffxiii when i was 9, i dont need to say how many hours i was playing to do the bevelle cloister of trials, even though im not an adult yet i still understand ffx perfectly, but when i played ffxiii i couldnt understand anything
SamoIsKing "Its like at the start of 7 where Barret is explaining to Cloud (who he thinks is ex-SOLDIER at the time) what a Mako reactor does. It doesnt make sense, its pointless exposition and its bad writing." It's not pointless whatsoever. Barret didn't know what Cloud did as a SOLDIER, and none of the SOLDIERS are ever found at mako reactors except during specific story beats. SOLDIERS are for combat, so unless they need to defend a reactor from invaders, there's no reason for them to ever be there. It makes perfect sense that Barret would think Cloud wouldn't know about them. In addition to that, think about Barret's point of view. Shinra is the big, evil corporation which is draining the life energy from the planet. From his perspective, he probably thinks that Shinra wouldn't ever tell the SOLDIERS anything about the reactors, because why would they need to know? They're just Shinra's muscle. Putting vital story information into datalogs is an absolutely terrible idea for a game who's central focus is the story and how the characters relate to that story. We need to see these important things happen in front of our eyes. As much as I hate ham-fisted dialogue that directly tells you what's happening, sometimes it's necessary when the setting requires such a drastic suspension of disbelief (as fantasy often does) For a fully voice-acted game with stunning visuals like XIII, forcing you into the menus to read about information that you should have just gotten in the last cutscene is a joke. It's insulting to the intelligence of the player because it feels like the devs assume you as the player are too stupid to notice that things aren't making sense, and that you should just be happy with the pretty visuals. The datalog feels like a band-aid solution added at the last minute to try and fix the fundamental issues with XIII's story delivery.
I put about 40 hours into 13 and your quick 30 second description of the game gave me more info about the game then I ever got in those 40 hours of play time.
I actually started with Final Fantasy 1 and its a great starting point. Very simple and easy, and I feel that just getting through Final Fantasy II would also be good, which is what I'm doing right now, as it has you thinking more about weapon selection. But I like to do things in order... which is sad since I don't think I'm going to get to play Final Fantasy XI or XII unless they come to steam.
FF XI is online, so normally, it is out of the final fantasy normal series... as for FF XII, it will come out on Steam on February 5,2018 and it is the international version with tweaked mechanics of the normal version.
You won't play XI period, because it's an MMO, and pretty much dead. I do suggest you play XII. It was released last year for the PS4, and well worth playing.
Spira = living breathing world and culture Cocoon & Pulse = HD wallpapers with flavor text 13's world just felt like disposable backdrop for the characters to have their moments in. I'd say the most telling part is how Cocoon & Pulse are just outright gone by Lightning Returns. Nobody seems that interested in the lost world either, and even Nova Chrysalia is treated as a throwaway land by the story. I see FF10 as a masterclass in worldbuilding, while the 13 trilogy consistently fumbled it.
MrSTVR I think you touched upon something here. All of the character development in XIII (if you can call it that) happened in "Big Moments." You can tell they're Big Moments because characters will stop and have an outburst and come to sudden realizations that's about as organic as my off-brand deodorant. In X, the character development is pretty slowburn and natural instead of being strictly reactionary. There's a pleasant moment where Tidus realizes Lulu explained some cultural nuance to him without him asking, because she now believes he really isn't an amnesiac suffering from Sin's toxin. It's subtle, and it feels earned at that chapter of the game.
Yeah X has more of a nuance when it comes to character growth and info. It isnt thrown in your face out of nowhere. Even Auron's big reveal had alot of hints throughout the game. You could figure out half of everything just by listening and looking for small details. Everything bout XIII just feels over the top and forced. Like they needed an excuse to do everything and just thought something up. Wakka's and tidus relation has chappu as a connection. But it isnt over the top or something huggeeee. Its just something small that connects tidus, wakka and lulu. And you see it change throughout the game, not in a over the top scene. Or how all the characters handle yevon and faith in their own way. FFX most dramatic/over the top stuff were saved for moments that deserved it. Yuna's dying(and she wasnt even there), Yunalesca, Jecht and the ending. But those had reasons to be big and didnt come of nowhere. But i totally agree with that the world in ff xiii feels like a pretty wallpaper. I have no connection with it. Compare that to the moment when you get closer to zanarkand.. The music, the events and when you finally get there. And at the end you just get punched in the face. XIII just feels empty and like actual areas. Just another area i have to walk through.. Hope, Serah, snow and lightnings connection are just blegh, just shuttup and move on.
Ferry yes exactly! Compare finally arriving at the much hyped up Zanarkand to arriving in Oerba, or Sazh and Vanille's relationship compared to Wakka and Rikku's. Hell, even look at the guardians' devotion to Yuna after she's kidnapped compared to the l'cie trying to save Serah. Everything in X feels natural and earns the right to be dramatic. XIII is melodrama compared to X.
Everyone in X has a legit and most important personal reason for being there. Saving Yuna is also something they have to do and maybe more important want to. They have no place to go, want to protect their dear friend and the one who will save Spira. X has the fleeing from a organization that hunts them too, but it isnt an entire game long xD. They also want to bring peace to Spira, with the chance of losing Yuna. Tidus being Yuna's light since he doesnt know.
Ironic because spira is called a spiral of death because of all the death Cult and sin ;) But yes FFX gave me that feel of a the people are fighting to end the death but by doing so they were actually leading to the destruction to rise anew. You can easily recall characters that were crossing your way and dont seem to be important at first but later played a bigger role. And even thought the main characters werde the only ones with high solution models, every sidecharacter seem to be deep besides having a placeholder Model sometimes.
For me the "linearity" mainly comes from the feeling of being "trapped" in the story. For example you are stuck in an area and have to fight your way forward. That's what really bugs me, I never feel like the characters are safe: no breather, no peaceful moments, no optimism. The main issue for me was the lack of towns. FF13 just felt like a really long struggle
The problem with FF13 for me is like I am feeling TRAP, yes just moving and moving forward, no Illusion of Freedom, horrible pacing, just FORCING TO MOVE FORWARD and moving, and moving, and moving forward. It's feeling like this I only play the game once and never touch it ever again.
That's the biggest failure of that game. It's like watching a movie "80 minutes" and you know something big will happen in 80 minutes later. Hence, you are trapped with only certain amount of times, it is a horrible for an RPG game since no exploration (wasted time). For an FPS game, it is understandable, but such story is the worst you could use for RPG with exploration and pacing.
This was an intentional design decision though - the FF13 devs want you to feel like you're forced to move forward on Cocoon because that's what the characters feel like. When they reject the notion that their fate is predetermined and land on Pulse, the game opens up, just like their ideology. This is similar to how survival horror games have bad controls intentionally so you feel more helpless than you're used to in video games.
X's linearity is built into the plot in a much more convincing way. Yuna and her guardians (sans Auron) feel helplessly trapped in her journey of sacrifice, so the linearity feels like a natural part of that tragic story. XIII just doesn't do this. At all. And the linearity feels like a grind rather than a natural consequence of the setting.
are you kidding me?If anything X should be less linear because Yuna knows shes going to die and at least wasting timr makes sense from delaying the inevitable.In final fantasy 13 the characters are on the run so being linesr makes more sense.I like 10 more, but come on really.
@@thraitor7819 Uhhh... No. The linearity in X makes way more sense because it's literally a religious pilgrimage to visit specific temples in specific areas that she feels she needs to do to hurry up and bring a calm to the people of Spira. She is selfless in that regard and knew from before she became a summoner that if she did, she would die. Why would she waste time dawdling? 13's Linearity feels extremely forced. From one objective to the next before you get a chance to breathe or even understand the plan/plot in motion.
Justifying X's linear nature while deriding XIII's simply reeks of nostalgia blinders, that's it and this is coming from someone that loved X and XIII equally.
@@thraitor7819 Not to mention the cast of XIII have a "focus", literally a plot device telling them to do specific plot things within an unspecified time limit or die. If that doesn't demand linearity I don't know what does lol.
A huge aspect that makes X feel less linear is also just that there are multiple villains too that make it feel like more is going on. XIII is sorely weak in the villains department. Your focus is always solely on surviving and then solely on killing Barthadelus while in X your overall focus is killing Sin but also saving Yuna from being kidnapped, beating Seymour, etc.
what? FF10 villains were the monsters (sin spawn) sin him self and the creepy molester dude who wanted to bang yuna. FF13 vilians were the monsters, the army, the fal'cie. Actual other characters in the part and time it's self. And yes time is a big enemy. FF10 didn't feel like the characters were ever in a rush at all. So yeah... Either you have awful memory, or you are just a bandwagon tard hating on 13 for no reason. But ff13 actually had alot more when it came to enemy and villain diversity.
slayerr4365 There's a stark difference between "villains" and "enemies", just as there's a difference between "story" and "gameplay". Do you really not understand that? Lol
It takes a master class story teller to make a story beloved by all. "" It takes a smart storyteller to use complicated words. It takes a smarter storyteller to use simple words instead."
I prefer a different way of phrasing this. "Anyone can teach a complicated concept to an adult. Only a truly intelligent person can teach that same concept to a 5 year old and be understood.
Not just that, FFX is about a journey, an end goal. Hell they made it clear from the beginning that it was always going to be a linear path so there was no real surprise about it
SoraxStacy147 and the game throws in twists and turns when it comes to how Spira works from the fiends being the souls of the dead not being sent to the farplane to some of the stuff with the summoners
I felt like 13 had so much more potential than what we got in 13. The upgrade skill tree was nice and flashy while not trying to draw too much attention, the cast of characters were great, Sahj, hope, vanille, lightning, etc all had great designs and added their own part to the cast. The story kinda sucked and the combat was meh, also the game was indeed pretty linear. I feel like Square enix has lost their edge since the ps2/6thgen era. 15 has a huge world but it's empty, and it's boring, so much content was cut from 15. and the game doesn't have a good story. it has A STORY. and sure for newcomers final fantasy games can be confusing but removing the really complicated storylines was a bad idea, thats what made the older ones sucessful, 13's story and linearity werent the only reasons they did bad. they just had alot of flaws that added up.
Seriously sounds like youre parroting others opinions. I see this word for word parroting across all subjects and it makes me wonder when I'll come across someone who's not a clone.
Tidus role in FFX is very important due to him having no knowledge on the world he was transported into similar to the player thus making the game much more fun to explore FFXIII don’t have that advantage and the way the story is told can only be appreciated if you play it several times or read a lot of data logs
FFX is great because like tidus the player is clueless as to what's going on making the story very simple to understand. when you are explained how something works and are still not 100% on board with understanding it tidus feels the same way until you see it for yourself happen. The battle with sin on the highroad is a good example as you see how powerful sin is and understand more how sad the sending is
Exactly. In a sense, Tidus represents the player, and he's so relateable, the things he thinks and says are things we could imagine ourselves thinking and saying. His inner monologues help pull the player into a very personal story that we feel a connection to over time. The way we learn about this new world surrounding Tidus is pretty much as great as they could have made it.
Though if you think about it, we didn't need Tidus in Spira as much as we needed him in Cocoon. Want a description of Spira? "Relatively standard fantasy video game world, but there's an unstoppable kaiju running around." Add a few more lines like "The kaiju can be killed, but it comes back in a few years, but people appreciate the reprieve", and the player has all the explicit exposition that is needed. Everything else could be learned in context. Wakka ranting about how he hates the Al Bhed using machina, and yelling at them that as long as they're around doing that, Sin will never go away, and you could tell us about the world without having to explain it to Tidus, without using any forced or unnatural dialogue. Cocoon is... weird. A floating city... but it's not all city, some of it is wilderness... being run by gods that are more like giant robots? Why is it floating? Why don't the gods just TALK to people instead of flashing pictures at them? What is this rebellion about? Who the hell could invade from Pulse at the beginning? We go there later and nobody lives there! Cocoon is not a standard setting, and so it needs someone like Tidus much more than Spira did.
Great video. One thing I'd also highlight, is that the routes on FFX felt connected and you saw the change in scenery. Even with something vastly different and seemingly disconnected like Maclania Woods was commented on to be so. Letting you enjoy it as something unusual to be in awe of. You also went back and forth between them, further enforcing the fact that they were neighbouring areas. Whereas all of FFXIII's routes for the first 20 hours felt disconnected from one another. All looked unusual (Artificially so, with no explanation on why they were like they were) and you didn't go back. Making them feel like levels in a platformer.
This is the argument I always make with regards to X vs XIII. Despite being linear with diverse landscapes, all the zones are connected which makes the world FEEL coherent. XIII feels like a hundred different worlds connected by loading screens.
Something else that bothered me about the world-building was immersion. Characters in Spira behave as if they're informed by their culture and history. People in Cocoon behave like people from modern day Oregon. Spira is just much more richly conceived while most of the levels you go through in XIII have little bearing on the story.
FFX was made by people who knew the heart and soul of what made a good final fantasy game. They weren't just making a game, they were making something they were passionate about and they wanted to share that with the rest of the world. That's why whenever I go back and play it, I can always relate in some way or another. For lack of a better word, the game spoke to me. It resonated with me like few games ever can. FFXiii in my (opinion) were made by people who had a dead line to meet, who lost focus and passion for the median they were working in, whose end goal was to not tell a story but to try and squeeze every last dollar out of the consumer as possible with pointless future sequels. But hey that's just my opinion.
It seems rather cynical to make such a conclusion about the creators of FFXIII. I don’t consider it a good game, but who’s to say they weren’t passionate about it? The sequels actually give me the impression that they were indeed passionate about it because they listened to the fans’ feedback and did their best to make a better game. XIII-2 is actually pretty good imo, and improves on XIII in most ways. Although I don’t like LR or XIII much.
Boyishdude There was depth in Final Fantasy XIII's combat system? I remember just mashing Thunder for 24 hours by which point I finished the game and tossed it aside because I could not be bothered by the game's post-ending nonsense.
Gabriel Chia watch an FFXIII any% speedrun, you'd be surprised at what they can do with minimal stats and equipment. It does have depth, but it may not seem like it if all you do is spam the same shit like a noob.
Man how I loved FFX I didn't care about how linear it was. And I really loved the environment. Besaid Island with lots of ruins from the civilization wiped by Sin. Same with Miihen Road, when you stop at Rins, and watch that cool sunset on the ocean with the big ruins faraway. Zanarkand was really well designed, and so were their ruins.
RK Belmont don't worry X is not linear well it may sound like it but you are not trapped in the story u can just ignore it and develop your characters amd just go to places u visited before, especially when u reach zanerkand to me I think ffx is a perfect game I don't have any negative thought about it it just too perfect
I played a few FF's before I played FFX (FFVI, FFVII, FFIX) and the linearity in FFX drove me nuts. Granted, Every Final Fantasy is bound to have some linearity, but FFX's really hurt and made me fear the franchise was going in a very poor direction. Still, The environments, plot, and content were enough to keep me entertained until the story really took off after Zanarkand. FFXIII makes all my worst fears into dreaded nightmares :(
Daniel Scutaru I'll be honest, I never got a ps2 until the ps4 was already out. Until then, I had only gotten to see people play X and XIII until I finally got to experience the rest of X for myself. I've never knew someone that played XII. I've heard mixed reviews, but I'd at least like to give it a whirl before I decide on that one, but it's a work in progress. I literally just beat FF2 on my tablet 2 days ago. I'm sure I'll get a copy of FFXII at some point.
@@JKBrown-vv1yw I hate both ff13 and 15 but loved 8 and 9 Let's say that final fantasy 12 has not the best storyline ever (but a really good lore) The gameplay is really good and is extreme free to grow and grind Just go for monster trophies , sell them fore money and buy better equipment. I think they add something of mmo there
No that's enough to get the full story plus finishing up whatever you missed. Even two times is enough. The game doesn't have much replay value besides just enjoying the game.
jlandejr When I say replay value I mean is there extra content once you finish the main story? Not really. I mean if you played using the traditional spheregrid you can replay it to see what your party can do. But there really isn't anything else to explore if you got all the Aeons, celestial weapons, and all the Jecht spheres. Like X-2 has replay value because of the multiple endings.
SnakeFace I never got to finish XII because my ps2 died on me. And I haven't gotten the new one yet. But Ivalice is one of the more interesting worlds of FF.
The "interlude" at Hope's house was the first moment I felt genuinely *good* playing FFXIII. I agree the game needed more times like those. The majority of the game was constantly being bombarded by enemies and chased by the authorities and it was just boring and tiring. You have to have up and down times to have a well paced game/story, or you will just become numb to the action and it doesn't have meaning.
Dude, THIS. It was one of my main problems with 13, the game was all fight 5 same enemies, cutscene, fight 5 same enemies, cutscene, chapter done. I felt like the game was just forcing the story along unnaturally by just having random cutscenes and calling it a story. I get they were on the run and stuff, but the pacing just wasn't good. Probably the reason why the Nautilus chapter was my favorite in the game because the focus wasn't on the action for once and it was a nice breather.
Manannan anam Oh yeah, which brings me to another major complaint I had. The battle system is designed for a 3 person party and for literally half the game you only have 2 party members. Killing enemies took just way too long. Not to mention when you DID have 3+ members, you weren’t allowed to switch anyone out or even the party leader until fucking chapter 10 or something. I honestly want to know what Square Enix was thinking
@@BlackWolf207 Also, the game revolves around staggering in order to really hurt the enemies and even grades your performance after battle, but since you do have a 2-character party for such a long time, you WILL have issues staggering enemies and you will constantly get bad grades for your combat performance that on top of the enemies taking literal minutes to defeat. It also doesn't help that the battle system (especially in the beginning) is mostly passive, while in FFX you can and have to choose what you want to do actively.
@@BlackWolf207 I kind of enjoy the battle system. And I personally preffered it, when my team was locked, because I had to work with I had, I never had much issues with combat grades before Grand Pulse. On the other hand the combat system feels more like a puzzle than a combat system, which I personally enjoy, but most likely pretty much everyone else doesn't like. And it feels very active, when you get to a point, where you change paradigms after pretty much every full ATB action to maximize time efficiency.
FFX is considered to be one of the better games in the series to start with. Superbutterbuns has an excellent video on which FF to start with so I'd recommend checking that out first. It's called "What Your First Final Fantasy Should Be".
In addition to Warbot's recommendation, Dark Pixel Gaming also suggests good criteria to consider in starting the Final Fantasy series; "Which Final Fantasy Should You Play First?" (ruclips.net/video/1m7kYraln6E/видео.html).
I'm sorry if you already got your answer but FFX is very good to start with. Amazing story, world, characters, and it truly has the FF mark in the game with all the Chicago, summoner, things, minivans, turn-based combat, etc
Living Myth 7 isn't bad but it has aged considerably worse than 9 or 6 and might be best saved for later. I feel that 10, 9, or 6 are the safest bets to make for a first FF.
Something else that I appreciate about FFX is the fact that you're never really forced to go forward, but you WANT to. Sure, there were some times where you literally couldn't go backwards, but I rarely encountered these, because I was so intent on finding the next Aeon or figuring out more about what was going on that it didn't matter. In addition, having the areas be short but unique made them all the more memorable. When you're finally going back to all the old areas, its fun remembering where you were in the story at that point and how your characters evolved. Also, knowing the story and playing the game again, a lot of scenes and lines that seemed insignificant gain a lot more meaning, like Rikku suddenly wanting to say something when Bartello lost Donna cause she knows what happened to her, but ended up just saying, "I just wanted to wish him good luck." Small things like that made the story more compelling.
I finished FFX and FFXIII. FFX ending made me cry. FFXIII ending made me wonder if I missed something, like understanding WTF is going on. Up to this day I still don't remember what this game was all about or what was the point of the story. Loved killing those giant dinossaurs on the only open field, though.
FFX ending made me, well actually nothing. As Much as I liked Tidus as a character, I actually hated him as an MC, I also hated how Yuna was the only character to actually "exist" in the story. FFX disappointed me greatly in that the MC was just the storyteller. That formula can work. We have Kyon in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya as an example on how it could be done. However it was not that well applied in Final Fantasy X, you spend 60 to 70 hours wanting people to aknowledge Tidus existence and contribution to the team. Seriouly play the game again and you see it, Only yuna and Auron get any recognitions, most characters simply ignore the rest including the MC, even the plot Ignores the MC. Most of the time either everyone deals with the problem at the same time, or in the rare cases when Tidus or another character does something, Yuna still gets the spotlight and credit. This made me hate Yuna as a character because she was pretty much an attention black hole. Things are so excessively centered on her that it becomes obnoxious quite fast, and while the dynamic between the party members is good, their interaction with the world around them is not. We all know how much all guardians love yuna and resent having to sacrifice here for her duty, but for the world Yuna's guardians only amount to Auron it seems. Which is curious because in the Braska's flashbacks we could see that his guardians were all respected by the people. But in Yuna's case, you'll rarely see any mention of Kimahri or Lulu or Wakka, even less of Tidus, curiously enough Rikku seems to get slightly more mentions may because she an Al Bhed and Yuna's cousin. Amd the Al bhen are far more important to the plot than the Besaid villagers(the only people in the world who know every single character in the story). It's a pity because there could be a more interesting reaction between Tidus and Seymour for example, have the guy aknowledge Tidus in special as a threat due to how Yuna seems to have feelings for him. Much like how Yunalesca was Auron's main target and Yunalesca did recognize him. Or some plot in which Wakka and Lulu could be the main focus as the ones who percieved the threat. Curiously enough Final Fantasy XII had exactly that, where even Vaan(a character which most players hated in FF XII) did something useful at the end with the cutscenes showing him having a major importance in defeating Gabranth. The game did recognize Vaan's existence despite how he was only there as Balthier's apprentice for most of the story. Some extra cutscenes in the International version also give more depth to Vaan while directly showing him to have deep hatred for the empire(which is only merely aluded at times in the original version, but it plays many more parts in the international version).
@@bloody4558 and this is why i like xiii story. Everyone character has their spotlight and resolution to their problems. The only person i havent seen grown was fang but im still playing but we'll see. I never payed too much attention on the story back when i played 8,10 and 12 but planning on it later but so far, i like 13 story telling even if its confusing sometime but it doesnt take me that long to understand the story. To me if people doesnt get the story of 13, then you're not paying attention to the game.
@@yongkysiaw6597 I played deep into 13 multiple times and still don't get it. You come from a place of already understanding it. 13 does a terrible job explaining the story. For the most part most people will have to read data logs if they want to understand what's going on. That is not a good way to present story.
It's a dumb analogy, though. A straw is short and efficient. That's why people use it over a silly straw. Not to mention that I don't think either FFX or FFXIII would be described as short or efficient. Both games a long, linear as hell, and spend half the time explaining things to the player that either just happened or are just about to happen. Or both.
Why does nobody mention how FFX's linear story goes off the rails partway through? After having a fun linear romp where your end goal seems clear, a stunning revelation throws everything into doubt and you flee back down the path you had just gone up before being thrown onto a desert island with literally no idea of where to go next? The way that the story is told in FFX is actually more tied to its gameplay than a lot of people think, such as how the opening up of the sphere grid as the group's destinies become hazier and their goals and motives change, allowing them to think for flexibly.
Here's one thing they differ in that really got to me after thinking about both games: Do you care enough about the world to bother saving it? In FFX, absolutely, as you met a great many NPCs who were good and/or interesting people. You get to explore the settlements and talk with people at your leisure. Even after being branded heretics, there are still people who support you. In FFXIII, you spend a few minutes with the NORA crew, and there's Serah and Dajh that are in crystal that your crew won't shut up about, but that's it, 40 hours go by and every other NPC you meet dies (usually by attacking you). You also have to shop "online" instead of talking to a living person, and there are no people at all on Pulse (the Datalog strikes again here, there are actually some interesting lore bits about the last people on Pulse that aren't "discussed" in-game). The rest of Cocoon hates your guts, and you never get to connect with anyone, so why bother? If you never get to meet anyone else in the game, then you're relying completely on having your main cast be super interesting and likable (which FFXIII's is not). At least FFXIII lets you skip cutscenes, so its speedrun is almost 4 hours faster than FFX's.
All jrpgs tend to be linear, because of the story. The problem is how they deal with that, or masked given some "liberty" to explore. FFX had everything going for it, the first truly 3d FF with voice, the graphics, the lore of Spira, characters, etc. And let's not forget, the popularity of MMOs, open world rpgs, and FFXII also divided the fans, I think mixing all of that affect how fans saw FFXIII.
Final fantasy 10 simply tells a better story way better in a better environment. The story is do well fleshed out and throws key scenes at you left and right at perfect moments that its hard to beat nowadays.
It's actually quite easy to beat. I'd say FFIV crushes FFX underfoot even though it severely lacks extra content, with 2 actual hidden dungeons and 1 optional village(there is actually 1 more hidden dungeon, but that one is so short it's kinda like a sidequest instead). Even those annoying twins who used to bother people more than help the team, had a turnaround and immortalized their names on that world's history(literally). While in FFX most characters were forgettable from a storytelling PoV. ALthough they at least were acnowledge by NPCs as Yuna's guardians, the poor MC was a ghost from the beginning to end.
@Crimea river The villains... The 2 villain you mean(Yunalesca and Seymour), and no they weren't the best, although they were good characters. Final Fantasy X was a pretty good game, but it is a fact that the main characters were poorly developed compared to other key characters. The story forces Yuna into the spotline so much it gets annoying after a while, especially since we have some pretty charismatic characters in Lulu, Rikku, Auron and even Tidus. Of these 4 Tidus got the worst deal, he was literally nothing, treated like air, and only acted like Yuna's romantic interest. If not for his father being Sin, he wouldn't have any weight in the story. Notice how I left Wakka out? Wakka is subpar compared to any of the characters I cited. Kimahri had a pretty badass design but he was essentially Red XIII from final fantasy VII, a pretty useless character who was only ever used as a mascot character. In this aspect Final Fantasy X was the same as VII, it had a very good lore, good villains, but underdeveloped main characters(aside from Auron and Yuna). Unlike VII however, the world itself fails to draw you in because of how you get introduced to things from Tidus PoV. Tidus has a very peculiar PoV compared to the rest, at times prejudiced, but other times he see's the truth behind things(mostly because he was raised in a totally different enviroment). Some people disliked him because they thought he was immature, but frankly, he's usually true most of the times. People in spira are usually fanatic thwards the Yevon church. He usually seen that and got fed up with this sometimes, and he is right, we see later that the Temple's are the main enemies out there, the ones behind every little misfortune that happened during the centuries. The excessive fanatism, and the way how most NPCs are blind to anyone else but Yuna and Auron most of the time, it keeps people's from fully investing themselves into Spira. For all it's problems and assumed problems, XIII didn't have the same problem, most people just Ignored the world because they didn't want to get into it, and not a failure on the storytelling point of view. After all Datalogs are not a problem, lot's of games have them and many of them are considered to be great games, but FF fans simply didn't want them in XIII. And so they use it as an excuse to create problems for the game that certainly don't exist.
It's not really a matter of opinion, as good as they were they weren't actually as deep as other villains. Although as villains I'd say they definitely rank higher than Sephiroth. BOth had pretty good backstories and they were also deeply tied to what would happen later on, however they lacked the power and the motivations of earlier villains. Best main villains are definitely the ones from 1 to 6. Now if we're talking about contribution and character(not necessarily as villains), these two are definitely rank very high up. As far as opinions go I really like FF XII villains, they didn't have this apocalyptic aura over them, like other villains, they were more similar to Yunalesca and Seymour, and they did have greater power than both. And for all the plans they made, they were by far the least evil villains in the FF series so far. Yeah they managed to beat Kefka in this aspect
I didn't say he wasn't deep, I said they weren't as deep as older villains. If you think Seymour is deeper than Kefka was then we're going to have a probem here. Like I said, you can prefer Seymour and Yunalesca as your favorites, and that would be your opinion. But you cannot say they are actually the best from a logical point of view, cause they aren't. If you played IV before you'll know that there is one charater in there who cannot be disputed when it comes from being both a villain and a victim, and Kefka is literally the most comple villain in the final fantasy games, which doesn't make him the best of or the worst, but definitely deeper than Lady Yunalesca and Seymour. Seymour was a problem even as a child, and he had everything to grow and become a better villain, one that deserved the final boss spot, but he had one fatal flaw, he was a teensy weensy bit of an arrogant creep, and for all his power he was still not strong enough yet. It doesn't help that Sin is the lamest boss in any final fantasy game. The Jecht part was ok, but Yevon was freeking tasteless. But Since Jecht was Sin, Seymour could never get the power up that would've made him a real threat. The reason why I don't consider Seymout to be a better villain than Yunalesca, was that for everything creepy about him, he never gave the impression that he was someone you could never beat, or that there was a possibility for your team to fail. Yunalesca however, was a better character overral and it was because we knew she couldn't be stronger than Sin, while Seymour gave last boss vibes, but because of Sin we knew there was no way for him to be last boss. Yunalesca, was supposed to be a powerful villain, that was in contact with the truth about the whole situation, we knew she wasn't the strongest, we knew it was possible to beat her, bet she still surprised us anyway, not only with her reveals she's got to be the enemy that is closest to Sin in power levels. She wasn't a bad person, but she lived for so long and watched her home die, only for her to survive but to have no place in the new world. She grew twisted, cooperate with the people she hated the most, and raised her beloved's soul in order for him to become an enemy that could potentialy erase the whole world. She just couldn't give a damn anymore, living her life to create sacrifices in order to perpetuate the destruction she's been causing. And she wasn't even the final boss. not did she seem like a final boss. She is indeed one of the best villains in the FF games, just not the best.
You've brought up a lot of good points, some I didn't even think about. I loved both Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XIII. One thing I really liked about the linearity of XIII is that it fit the plot. X's plot allowed for them to take their time. Yes, bringing the Calm would be better sooner than later, however they could go at their own pace. XIII however, they were all fugitives. Why would a bunch of wanted criminals stop by a casino and have some fun? They wouldn't stop and talk to townsfolk because they don't want to be recognized. But once they all get to Pulse, where they are no longer being persued, the game opens up. It makes sense to the narrative.
Yes. A lot of people don’t realize that the linearity of their time on Cocoon is symbolism for the Fal’Cie control over not just the main characters but mankind as well. It makes perfect sense. That’s why it was so refreshing for us to finally reach Pulse after moving on rails for so long. And once you get back to Cocoon you’re back riding them again, why? Because it’s what the Fal’Cie want you to do. Hell Bartandelus even gives you the means to do so. It serves a purpose but when it extends to things like the leveling system it becomes downright painful.
The thing is, it doesnt matter if its symbolism or not. Its a game and games are supposed to be fun. If you had to stay still for 200 hours ingame because it symbolises you being in jail, would the symbolism justify the horror? If they couldnt work with it thy shouldnt have mae it that way. The opening of the game takes way too long. I was like when can i do something else that mash x and pres the analog up?
@Woman, Yeah i agree. Especially the thing that it expects you to be interested and invest in it. That is something you need to deserve as a game, not expect. Like you said: its asks to much and without deserving it. Also many characters had to flee in other games. Heck VI, VIII, IX and VII had it too. Especially vii. The others just had some parts. But VII had Shinra behind them.But no, in XIII everyone was against you, thats no fun. It works for a small period, but not the entire game.
I think its the love story between Tidus and Yuna that is the real focus in ffX. This love story steadily evolved and became strong. Oh....and that ending scene. Well it is unforgettable even 16 years later.
It always bugged me when I hear people complain games being ‘too linear’ as if in and of itself is always a negative aspect. You’ve done a great job in showcasing how a linear game could be done either exceptionally well or poorly.
As a 13 fan, I agree entirely with this, but I always loved this game more than any other (even 7) because I just felt like I understood the story, characters, etc. But, that’s probably mostly because I actually read the datalog...
I never played 13, or any Final Fantasy really, but I have no idea how you managed to even just finish it once, unless this video is full of crap, the game sounds like a way too long and unsatisfying chore, but at least someone's having fun I guess.
@@Blue-lb4fj he did mention that at the 20 hours mark it actually starts and becomes more enjoyable, but 20 hours is kinda too long to get the game going, even FF7 remake which is pretty much only the first act of the original story stretched to infinity has better pacing somehow (tho it's still too much there as well IMO).
In X you can revisit areas. In XIII they limit how far you can level up according to the story. Also I liked XIII better when it was called Xenosaga; a game ironically with more freedom than XIII
r3dGilgamesh I don't remember getting the option to go back in 13 until after beating the game. Now 13-2 on the other hand you could go back to any place at anytime because of the whole time travel thing.
I'm surprised you didn't also mention the ability to backtrack. I think it makes a huge difference especially as things change with the story moving on. People excuse XIII for not allowing that because they were on the run. However, that applies to FFX as well. They just changed the npcs and invironments slightly and it made the whole world feel more real and less like a hallway.
This. I didn't even mind that much when they recycled ALL OF SPIRA for Final Fantasy X-2, as they changed enough to make it feel like time had passed and things about the world had changed. I don't think it was perfect, and FFX-2 is light-years away from being as good as FFX, but that at least didn't bug me.
Being able to backtrack makes a huge difference. In FF13, if you leave an area prior to Gran Pulse, you will never see that area again. On the other hand, in FF10, even when you are about to arrive in Zanarkand, it is actually possible to turn around and walk all the way back to Besaid. Gets a bit easier with the airship after Zanarkand, but still possible.
burk314 Exactly, and the npc reactions are different at different points of the game. Which just makes it feel so much more alive and real. In XIII the places and people you see feel like nothing but backgrounds to the hallway you're playing in. Imo it has a huge impact when the plot involves making us care about saving the world: to actually make it feel like a world with people who have reactions to the state of things.
And its not like they actually did that for the story. They did it so that you couldn't just grind and level, forcing you to fight every battle the way the devs intended you to fight it, so even the combat became linear as help, since you couldn't really deviate from formula. This goes back to my other statement on the video, that they kept flashing cool stuff in front of you, then wouldn't let you actually play with it. If the game is set that you have to have Soldier, Medic, and Ravaged, then that's it. Nothing else will work, no matter how you spent your points. In X, you could switch out characters mid-combat, teach them any skill in the game, and so your party lineup was customized to your own play style.
They were so anti-grind in FF13 (at least prior to Gran Pulse) that they literally capped your crystarium progress until you hit story milestones. One of the worst parts of that in my opinion is that you don't unlock the entire crystarium until after you defeat the final boss. I'm not a huge fan of post-game content.
I'd say that the terms in FF13 can quite easily be *inferred*. I remember my first time playing through it and not being confused at all; I just inferred that the Fal'cie are demigod-like beings, based on the way the characters spoke of them; with fear and (albeit reluctant) reverence. The L'cie, I inferred as being affiliated with the Fal'cie in some way, since they both end with the suffix "cie", although of course it wasn't confirmed for me until Chapter 2 or 3. The word Cie'th seemed to take after the word "wraith" and actually, the game pretty clearly spells out what they are in Chapter 2, when you first encounter them. Tl;dr, FF13 tends to tell its story between the lines, so you have to infer a lot as you play. It might also be that I'm coming from an Asian perspective on gods/divinity in general, where we have different and sometimes esoteric names for the different tiers of gods and goddesses that make up chinese/indian/japanese pantheons. Having "weird/vague" terms for divine entities isn't an unfamiliar idea for us
I also had absolutely no issues understanding anything in the game 🤷🏼♀️ I enjoyed both X & XIII, and I don't really see any reason to compare those or any FF games I've played. They are all extremely different, completely separate games to me.. Comparing them seems a bit silly. I once read a deep, scathing comparison of VII, VIII, & X... I just don't get it... Adored all immensely and truly don't understand the need for nitpicking.
XIII infers and respects your intelligence to read between the lines, both emotionally and in terms of world-building. Lightning and Hope using each other as replacements for their lost loved ones and subconsciously leaning on each other as surrogate family, Sazh more or less doing the same with Vanille with the added lovely complexity of an older man not understanding he's lecturing a faaaaaar older being than he ever will be, Snow's gradual, slow cracking outter shell of over-compensating self-confidence which mascarades his visible yet understated denial, which completely blows out of the water all cliched anime protagonist bullshit characters like Zidane ever brought up with their immediate one-moment-this-next-moment-that personality shifts that are totally unrealistic. This is deep emotional stuff; fantastic character building and the fact that all of the main roster more or less handles and deals with their most pressing emotional issues by the end gives them life. These are things that most Final Fantasy fans expect the game to spell out for them, with huge diatribes and monologues all the time, either because they've becomed accustomed to it or because they're generally far too stupid to enjoy a narrative any more intelligent than the plot of any generic shounen anime. Final Fantasy fans ask for more human-like and deep emotional characters but then they'll spend a 20 minute video shitting on Hope for reacting realistically like a teen who just watched his own mother crushed from a several meter high fall, followed by having to live on the street with strangers while being pursued by the government. How they don't immediately understand why Hope is a bumbling emotional mess just goes to show how utterly unprepared they are for any remotely complex character-driven narrative. Keep in mind: Lightning is the first protagonist in the entire franchise who wholeheartedly chose to hug someone else to comfort them. Not because they're a potential love interest, but because she is worried about them, and needs comfort herself. Yet all everyone seems to want to remember about her is she punched Snow. FFXIII had a lot of problems gameplay-wise but it's story is probably the most mature and emotionally realistic of the entire franchise. It just sucks that the fanbase of said franchise just isn't up to snuff.
X is linear but for some reason it didn’t bother me in X, I couldn’t tell you why, it was paced so well and you add your characters as you go along rather than XIII where all your characters split up until quite near the end of the game
ForzaTerra89 Linear is NOT bad. It’s how the games approach it. FFX, The Last of Us, Uncharted, God of War,... are all very linear and they are the best games around. Most linear games, include the ones I mentioned above, did a very good job at giving you an illusion that you are not playing a linear game. You can run around open places and look for hidden treasures/collectibles/upgrade chests. FF XIII literally forces you to run through hallways of a map and gives 0 reasons to look for anything except rushing from A to B. They just don’t even care about giving that illusion of non-linearity.
It's because battles are fun in FFX and boring in FFXIII. "Linearity" isn't a problem if the journey itself is fun. FFX still retained enough of turn-based combat to be a good RPG. At it's core, FF13 (and 15) are more like movies that you have to mash buttons to watch.
You’re forgetting a VERY IMPORTANT FACT. And that is....MUSIC! The music in ffx was AMAZING at building the right atmosphere whether it be admiring the wonder of spira...sympathizing with the characters and yunas role as a summoner....celebrating victories against the Luca Goers as the underdog. The storytelling of ffx was done so well at evoking emotions that made the game so much more enjoyable. I’m a pretty hardcore ff fan and i found I had a hard time trying to like ffxiii. It just didn’t come natural like all the other ffs offered unfortunately. Great video.
Exactly. X has one of the best soundtracks out of any Final Fantasy and the music is always placed perfectly. To anyone who plays the remaster, go for the PS4 version of the remaster and choose the ORIGINAL Soundtrack, not the re-arranged one.:
Not to mention that "Dust to Dust" is such an incredible track that it makes me really wish that 13's story telling was stronger. I feel that there needed to be a bit more build up to Oerba considering how important it is to Fang & Vanille but you kind of just suddenly get there. I also wished they showed it while it was still a thriving town to help really drive home that ghost town aspect.
I feel like most of XIII's decisions were made based on backlash to XII; the Paradigm system is an extremely stripped down, minimized version of the Gambits, the linear level design was a response to the really meandering open fields of Ivalice, and the story being hidden away in datalogs feels like a response to the dry political exposition of XII's plot. Personally, I loved XII, largely because the plot was so political and the levelling/party structure was so unique and different, but a lot of people I've talked to seemed to just not enjoy it and felt it was confusing/overwhelming, so when they made XIII, it feels like they were trying to strip down and streamline the design of the game, but went overboard and ended up giving you an emaciated husk of what a JRPG is supposed to look like.
Luigi Anderson I have zodiac waiting for me. I couldn’t get into 12 in my teens because the MMO style combat kinda turned me off of the whole thing back then. Looking forward to giving it another try when I clear up some of my other games. That said, Vaan and Panelo still suck.
Well, sorta. The game wasn't hated on, but it didn't really make a splash. I can only speculate on what Squeenix's internal discussions were like, but it feels like they were well aware of FF's slow decline in popularity ever since its explosion on the previous console. Most people who I know who got into XII loved it, but a lot of people just glossed over it. I believe I heard somewhere that the lukewarm reception to XII is also the reason Squeenix hasn't set any more games in Ivalice, as they thought people just didn't like the setting. Perhaps 'backlash' was a bit too strong of a word, but it feels to me like they saw that XII wasn't really doing too hot, not nearly as hot as X had been, and so they assumed that the systems they'd implemented were too complex and clunky so they tried to streamline them down for XIII, and ended up stripping the game of almost all actual player engagement in the process.
I agree; I think XII was a great game; I was referring to how the market responded to XII (as opposed to X, which was a much larger commercial success, I'm pretty sure), and how Squeenix tried to 'correct' for what their fans didn't like in XII. XIII seemed, to me at least, like it was trying to 'fix' a lot of the things that Squeenix assumed customers had responded poorly to from XII, which ended up making XIII a massively stripped-down, barebones experience because they were trying to fix aspects of the game that weren't actually broken.
But a lot of people like 12... Its on top 5 in many peoples lists... It's actually my favorite... Lots of side stuff, big complex world with good lore which ties into side stuff, lots of hidden stuff, the airships are by far the best airship designs ever, a good story that wasnt convoluted and easy to follow, a rogue god wants to put the fate of man back into their hands... and we are actually fighting against it which means the story even has nuance. I liked the gambit system but I know thats a personal preference I guess...and finally it had good characters and a couple good twists...
What made FFX so good was that yes, the game was linear, but the entire game's story was designed around that with the pilgrimage and all. This wasn't a game for you to wander around and do small things. There were small things for you to do, but they were basically on the path. It was about seeing diverse places, wondering what beautiful area you were going to be exposed to next, what kind of monsters, hazards you were going to face. The game did such an amazing job with those hazards and effects, like the lightning in that one stormy area. In FFXIII, you weren't drawn on that single path. You were yanked around like you were on a chain. The game screamed for explanation such as the theme park. I'll never forget reading about it in the game and being so excited. "Is this FFXIII Gold Saucer? Do I finally get to wander around a bit?" No. It was just another instance of the game yanking me in another direction. Boring, overly gigantic and uninspired locations made the high encounter rate seem like torture. I just wanted to play to get to the next area, only to find that it was the same thing with different graphics. Because it was an FF game, I would try to push through. Then, when it finally does throw you out in the open, suddenly it goes from this super linear path to this wide open area. I was given no indication of where to go or what to do to advance the story, getting 1-hit by monsters and such. I finally got what I wanted, but the entire single path experience drained so much that I had no patience to figure out the rest of the game or look at online walkthroughs. So I quit and never turned back.
You'd have a point if the game didn't encourage you to go off and play Blitzball for hours. Or if Yuna didn't have a wedding ceremony in the middle of her big pilgramage.
Another problem with the crystarium in XIII is that it seems to be ant me. I'm a grinder. I LIKE Becoming an uber badass early into the game. Yet it level caps you based on what section of the story you are in. You literally can't be max level until like chapter 10+ IIRC. to those that don't like grinding or don't care either way, its whatever. But to me, it was a definite negative. In my opinion, If i want to spend 200 hours in the map and 1 hit the first boss, thats my choice. in my opinion if you are going to hard cap me, don't be direct about it. do it the way some other, notably western, games do it and don't have the enemies respawn. don't want me being too high level by a certain point? don't freaking allow me to fight unlimited enemies. simple as that. don't have the level system itself do it. I don't want to FEEL restricted, even if i actually am. I think you should always give the player the illusion of agency even if their is none.
Also about the FFX's Sphere Grid is the ability to recreate the Ssheres. You can fill the empty nods to make your characters stronger but you can also delete the slots already on the sphere to either replace the ones that have low stats upgrades to stronger ones or just delete it to weaker your characters for testing maybe? or challenges although I guess starting a New Game would make more sense.
I'm pretty sure this is basically one of the fundamentals of avoiding bad game design. Knowing the shortcomings of your game, and then not allowing the player to easily observe those shortcomings. FFX does this, FFXIII does not.
@Wolfwood2057 The problem here, is that there are not that many shortcomings in FFXIII. What is there is many things most people consider to be shortcomings. Many of the problems cited by most people I usually see, I don't consider to be problems at all. Like the whole database thing or the Crystarium. The linearity in the Chrystarium is not a problem it's just a feature that it's not to everyone's taste. Having a customizable skill tree is not a rule, it's a possible feature. You don't have to cater to people who want to "make their own path" all the time if you don't want to. It's not detrimental to character progression or storytelling, it's not detrimental to any of the game's system.
You see the problem here? It's not that I don't like games that give me choice, is that there are already far too many games that give me choice. Not all games need to be open world, or "Make your own adventure". Final Fantasy was always about telling one specific story, the only change made to each iteration was the formula used to tell it's story, which usually expanded to the gme's system. People nowadays expect all games to follow the same formula, adding all the new things they are getting used to. When something doesn't really present that, they consider it to be a mistake. But it's not a mistake, rather you guys have been far too spoiled by games.
I love both games honestly. Yeah, I get attacked every time I say I enjoyed FFXIII lol but I will admit, I agree with EVERYTHING you said about FFXIII, but for some odd reason, I can work around these things. As someone who likes FFXIII, I can honestly see why people didn't like it. But I still love both X & XIII. You deserve WAY MORE VIEWS AND SUBS MAN! This video was great! :D
Thanks man! That means a ton to hear! Personally I'm conflicted on 13...I do enjoy it to a certain extent and if I hadn't lost my first playthrough (made it to Gran Pulse back then) to a faulty hard drive and forced myself to replay the whole thing years ago, I probably would've looked more fondly on 13 but the issues with it's story presentation and monotony are just too much to ignore for me.
Youre allowed to enjoy what you want and agree what you want. The only thing you want to avoid is saying "All u ppl that dont like FF13 are haters and bias. U all dont understand. FFx was simplistic and an older game blah blah blah." Dont stir up the hate.... state the facts! And enjoy your own opinion!
Another thing I like about the sphere grid is that, if you want, you can just follow the linear character path if you don't feel like investing a lot of time in the Sphere Grid.
I liked your comparison between X and XIII's main cast and side characters. You also said "the story in XIII makes more sense if you're already familiar with the world of cocoon". I actually found both of these issues from XIII to be just as present in XV. The side characters don't flesh out the world much at all, and the entire plot seemed like it was written for the developers -- the people who already knew everything about the game and could write an ultimania about it -- rather than the consumers. It's sad that all they learned from XIII was that they needed to pull back on the linearity.
Tom W XIII felt better as a story, lore, presentation, battle mechanics, ost. The only issue with 13 was removing backtracking, side quest till chapter 11 and town/Npc exploration. 15 was garbage it was poorly designed and not even a full game.
Indeed.this game took a second playthrough for me to understand what happenes. Cause I was already aware of the world and what it meant to the characters. Instead of giving you text logs, the game should have been focused on world building before turning you into cie'th and then move onward. Not leave that task to text logs which I had patience to read.. but not everyone shares that patience
Well-Dressed Ginger I don't think you remember 13's cutscenes very well especially the CGI ones. Half of them were tense moments of action. XV actually had the dull cutscenes like writing to Luna, talking to eris etc.
The problem with XIII is that it's a final fantasy game. The unfortunate truth is ff games will always be compared to previous games. I tried to play XIII, but couldn't get past a few hours because it didn't feel like a ff game. A year later I went back and convinced myself to not think of it as a ff game. I ended up thoroughly enjoying it, and spent dozens of hours getting all the items and the best weapons.
Seems like the same reason why there were/are many comments about hating Resident Evil 5 and 6. Those are bad Resident Evils, but good action thriller games.
13 is still difficult to enjoy. Final fantasy sets the standard of rpgs. So not seeing it as an ff is like not seeing it at the standard ot tries to achieve. If 13 wasnt advertised so heavily, then perhaps.
Problem is, I'm not even a big FF fan. I enjoy it okay but I'm no veteran. I'd never beaten an FF game before then. So I didn't really come in with any expectations based on other FF games. And it's still the most boring RPG game I've played. And I liked what I played of X-2...
Final Fantasy X has a point to every area, both in narrative and in game play. You always know what you're doing and where you are by the time the introduction is over, and each stop along the way informs the setting, your next destination, and the characters. Even new mechanics and wrinkles in the combat system continue to be added until the mid-late point of the game. You move through these areas with reasonable speed, no one location ever outstaying its welcome, but all making at least a tiny impression. Tiny little hidden nooks and crannies encourage exploration even in the tight corridors of your path, and several distractions from the weight of the main characters' duties and trials dot the landscape in the form of mini games- the largest of them being Blitzball, which literally serves as one of the few distractions the natives of Spira possess from Sin and their terrible existences in-universe. You're on a pilgrimage for the majority of the story, so your path being a line makes sense. It opens up at the end when the characters break from the path set for them that had been leading into the vicious cycle at the core of the setting. The leveling system is similarly linear (less so with the Expert Grid), but also presents many opportunities to break from the linearity through the use of keys, teleports, etc. By roughly the same time that the game's world opens up, you'll reach the end of each character's natural path, leaving you with nowhere to go but to break away from that path if you hadn't. These moments exist to perfectly coincide with the characters deciding their own stories. The linearity in Final Fantasy X has a thematic point, and is accounted for in the game's designs. Final Fantasy XIII very much wants to recapture what people loved about the games before it. Its chaotic opening sequence with the player thrown into the action is reminiscent of Final Fantasy VII, and Lightning of Cloud at the beginning of the game, while the structure of the levels is VERY similar to X's in that it's heavily linear and only opens up near its end. But it does so without understanding how its predecessors did it and why. In VII, you have only one point of view to follow, and the game organically introduces you to the jargon of the setting- Mako Reactor, SOLDIER, AVALANCHE. The terms used in ways that explain their nature or role in the setting, aside from the fact that several are near self-explanatory (SOLDIER obviously being military-related but different from a regular soldier, AVALANCHE evoking disaster and destruction, Mako 'Reactor' some energy source). Despite characters never explicitly sitting each other down to provide a dictionary explanation, the player catches on well enough to follow the action. XIII's opening jumps about constantly between multiple view points, fails to define its terms or even use terms that evoke ideas that can be used to grasp the situation. What's a l'cie? What's a fal'cie? Aside from Cocoon's enemies, I mean? It takes its sweet time telling you, and on many terms and locations all throughout the game, you have to dig into a dictionary the game shoved into the menu to learn anything, if there's anything to learn at all. X does an excellent job of pacing its plot and character development. XIII does not. It follows the same idea of breaking the game up into defined chunks, but many times the characters and plot don't advance in these chunks; they merely repeat the same information and character beats over and over. It feels like they had no idea of how they wanted these stories to be presented, made a few dozen possible takes, and then ran out of time and funding and just shoved them all in out of a hope nobody would notice. The areas are visually different, but have no real game play variation to set them apart or mechanics to introduce. No side quests, no mini games, nothing for the stretch. Character customization of meaningful capacity is non-existent. Even when the world DOES 'open up', there's not much to do aside from what you've already been doing, and the combat system really does not have the depth to keep it fresh after 20 hours. The linearity does not serve the plot, in fact it damages it. Your characters are fugitives on the run, and they don't have much in the way of plans about how to survive or escape. Each new area is pretty much just whatever was nearby in their aimless running, so why is it all so linear? There's no reason to be in a given spot for most of the game. The locations themselves aren't even explained or fleshed out much beyond whatever is in the datalog. Even the main antagonist's motives are shoved into datalogs. XIII does what it does purely because a previous game in the series did them, or because the game is trying to subvert things previous games did for the sake of subversion. Tools exist for specific purposes, and the same goes for narrative tools. Just like you don't hammer a nail into wood purely for the sake of hammering a nail into wood, you don't use plot structures and beats purely because someone else had some success with what they were using it for.
Why not? How is that not preferable to forcing the story onto the player through cutscenes when they may not care? A player cannot be assumed to want to watch cutscenes when they play a video game, and therefor cutscenes are not good design or storytelling in a medium defined by the interactivity and the audience's agency.
I suspected FF 13 would suck when I was reading an interview where they basically said they were looking at what worked in FF 7 and just finding ways to incorporate it into 13. They didn't ask WHY certain things worked, which is why you have characters and settings that don't really seem to make sense or fit with the rest of it (I.E Lightning is basically Cloud, they start on a train because that's how 7 started, there's a casino because 7 but it doesn't really do anything)
Nevertheless, there are a _lot_ of similarities between VII and XIII. The devs were even told to "make her something of a female Cloud" when designing Lightning. I liked the first XIII game, but there is no denying the _obvious_ references to Final Fantasy VII. And no -- VII isn't even my favorite title. I just recognized the similarities.
It most certainly gets an even worse reputation because they punished us for not caring about the characters by giving us 2 sequels. I don't think anyone was happy to have lightning's brooding forced down their throats for 2 games, or everyone's in-universe obsession with her sister in the first 2. (Edit: all 3, forgot that snow wouldn't shut the fuck up in lightning returns or that the actual premise of that game was for lightning to get her sister back, not sure how I managed to forget that.) Didn't mind Noel so much in 13-2 though, can't really put my finger on why since I pretty much despise everyone else in that entire series.
I found FF15 to be quite enjoyable. The characters resonated with me. The game was very linear, but the intent was that these 6 people were L’Cie and time was their enemy. Their fate is sealed, thus the linearity until post-game. The chapters were impeccable too, better than ff15, composition-wise. the backstory of each character is carefully built and you see how the fate of the 6 individuals intertwined. The flow is flawless, and that’s what got me to keep playing until the end past all the boring battles, because I was rooting for these characters. *This* *game* *is* *story* *and* *detailed* *enriched,* *rather* *than* *gameplay.* I took the time to read all the datalogs lol, and I do think they could have done a better job integrating some of the history. I read a datalog about Paddra Tsu Yeul and I was like “who tf is this and why should I care?” But then after playing FF13-2 I realized who she was and was able to connect it back to the first game. Enough can be said able the games mechanics though in all honesty. The story in FF13 is very well nurtured, especially if you get to play the trilogy in order through FF13-Lighting Returns, the game hits on some touching topics, relatable themes and arguably real-world issues. The way the series envelopes your emotions in not just simple tactics like character deaths, sacrifices, tragedies, and loss. It instead carries you through of what it means to be alive, to keep fighting through despair, how not to give up when the going gets hard, but also how hard it is to stay alive, and how to live with your demons. In conclusion lol, FF13 tells a story that players who stuck around to listen will never forget. However the way it was presented and delivered is very debatable.
I agree. I liked 13's characters and their promo material (growing up I was a huge fan of 9 but didn't ever really resonate as deeply with X). When it came time to play 13 I soaked up everything like a sponge and read religiously for the main game, but didn't really fall in love with the sequels as much. When it came to story delivery, the way it was told was a "the adults in game know what's going on, therefore we won't spoon feed the info in dialogue". Which I feel added to the realism (Something they did again for 15 that I appreciated.) Do they go too hard on needing to read the backstory? Absolutely. Hope and Vanille were prime candidates for characters that could have been slightly out of the loop and NEED explanation like Tidus did in X or for example Vivi or Eiko in 9.
FFX is nowhere near as linear as FFXIII. There's only one open area in XIII and once you leave you can't get back. In X every area is open and you can return to anywhere you've been. There's also several optional areas and many hidden places amongst the areas. I really don't think the two can be compared in terms of linearity. If we want to compare everything else, well XIII looks prettier. I'm trying to be unbiased, but I really think X is better in every other way.
Yes, you do walk along paths. The difference is that there is more to do along those paths. Tell me, was there anything substantial waiting along a branch from the main path in XIII? At least in X you could get Better weapons, optional summons, some rather strong bosses, etc. And unlike XIII, you could actually go back a revisit those areas again to find anything you may have missed.
Great video. Another thing that I've always struggled with when it comes to XIII's story are the gobbledygook terminology, compared with X's terminology which very much has a grounding in the real world. X uses terms like Sin, Calm, Fayth, Aeon, which are all derived from descriptions (mostly with religious connotations, running with the themes of the game) from our own world, so we can immediately relate to it and utilize our own understanding of the real world terms within the context of the world of Spira. Even Spira is explained as being derived from spiral. It's a brilliant example of cleverly used terminology in a fantasy setting. XIII on the other hand, whilst it does use Cocoon, Pulse, Purge etc, the story is very much centred around the terms Fal'Cie and L'Cie. I've tried looking up whether these are in fact derived from a preexisting terms but have found nothing, so I can only assume they are completely made up (or at least something so vague that hardly anyone will know - if anyone does though I'd be very interested to find out!). It's why the characters have to keep reinforcing what a Fal'Cie and L'Cie are, purely to try to get these terms to make some form of sense to the audience. Basically, while XIII did have a lot of potential, it never did itself any favours. Had they used terms we as the audience could immediately relate to, they could have filled all the time wasted on characters repeating that Pulse L'Cie are "enemies of Cocoon" with more story content and world building. Sadly, a lot of this is sidelined and just shoved into the datalogue.
The difference is very simple. FFX had an easy hook from the beginning. Right after the intro/tutorial sequence, Tidus is given one simple quest - follow Yuna as she gathers her summons to fight the boss, or as players of the time see it - seek out some next gen Shiva boobies. The player willingly follows along and the game gets the chance to try and make the players care. FF13 failed at the beginning with that. Basically, a god tells you "you gon die les you do wut I say, bruh!" As a reasonable player, I ask "what should I do?" And the game's response is "...go find out." BAM, the game just lost me.
akba666 At all times of 10, you knew very clearly what the next goal was. You knew exactly what you were headed to and why. In 13 not even the characters know what they're doing. The shitty writing literally becomes the villain of the game.
Seeing Brotherhood crossed with whatever kind of swiss army knife looking thing Lighting uses makes me think of how well they represent their games. Brotherhood is straightforward with some flair, like the hilt, pommel, and random hook at the end. X is very easy to understand and get stuck into. Lightning's gunblade is way overcomplicated, I don't know where it starts or where it ends. Kind of like how XIII's world building is described in the video.
@@Sines314 I agree but FFX was also the beginning of the end. It benefited from having the ps1 trilogy's DNA at it's core but the things the game brought to the table were very inessential. When you play X you can actually feel that everything that made FF special was beginning to fade away. Final Fantasy X was the end of an era.
Sadly FFX was very much the last good final fantasy. They'll ruin the remake of 7 too.. It'll be another glorified hallway runner with no exploration or freedom.. I'm willing to bet they won't even give a world map or equivalent..SMH
I wonder if the pacing of XIII was hindered due to how the game wrote itself into a corner with a time limit of turning into a cie'th and constantly being hunted down in Cocoon.
I think they wrote themselves into a corner by turning the Main Party into L'Cie by the end of Chapter 2 instead of doing it a 3rd of the way into the game. The gravity of being branded a L'Cie doesn't really hit since (aside from Serah) you never really see any other normal L'cie beforehand so it's somewhat hard to even grasp what a L'Cie actually is. Frankly, I think the game shouldn't have started with the en media res at the Hanging Edge, it should have been rewritten to start in Bodhum instead so it could have better established Cocoon as an actual place.
Totally with you. While the flashbacks to Bodhum are a good cinematic choice, if the days leading up to Hanging Edge were used to introduce characters and some of their motives, it would've helped (except maybe for Hope and Vanille). That way there'd be less break ups and more room to do other things like use Nabaat better or probably even introduce Cid sooner.
They wrote themselves into a corner by putting the characters into a lose/lose situation. Fail to complete your goal? Turn into a monster. Complete your goal? Turn into a crystal. Keep the monster bit of it, but give the characters an out by achieving their goal - just make that goal one that they don't want to accomplish for whatever reason. That leaves you with a moral quandary. Fail to complete your goal and you basically die. Complete your goal, but you hurt the lives of many other people. Characters have to struggle with taking the selfish or selfless route, and in the end they can still "go against fate" by either choosing not to go after the goal (and thus being turned into monsters), completing the goal via some loophole to where it's not actually a bad thing, or choosing a third route and fighting against the people that placed this curse upon them. Instantly a much more satisfying story and set up for the plot, which I think has potential.
I honestly think they were idiots for making the military knowing where you are at all times for literally no reason. They could have had the result of the vision be the end of the first fucking act of the game. Also the time limit means they had even more reason to just get to the point. They could have had the thing that gave them their focus actually tell them, after all IT COULD SPEAK IF IT WANTED and why wouldn't it? It is not going to accomplish anything if it doesn't tell its own servants what they should be doing. Also the "you turn into a crystal" thing is not even that big a problem, especially as there is all likelihood that the crystal is just suspended animation until the thing needs you again. And all this is assuming the whole curse is irreversible, where all the power transferred from the god to the main cast should eventually become more than the curse itself. Basically they didn't write themselves into a corner, they always had an out - they never actually used it though.
Warbot I think they missed a nice world-building opportunity in making the Cavalry absent for most of the game. A more active rebel group placed throughout the game's levels could've given some much needed exposition via dialogue as well as the much-missed "pit stops" you'd find in other Final Fantasy games.
FF10 has its problems, but theres no denying its a fantastic RPG. The difference between FF10 and FF13 is Hinorobu Sakaguchi. Without him Sqaure fucked it all up. Square fucked FF13 up by spending too much money and time on the Fabula Nova Crystalis project. They couldn't justify all that time and money on one game, so they split FF13's mythology across 5 games. Thats why the story was so thin, all we had with FF13's was nonsense like: "Its our Focus, Serah said so". Every few cutscenes the same dialogue is repeated over and over and over. The story never moves forward like FF10; the cutscenes are there to placate the players until the end of the game; when we finished the game, we were told that FF13-2 would continue FF13. So there was no intention on Squares part to tell a complete story in one game, the story was designed to span 5 games, hence why they coulnd't explain the story in FF13, they could only develop the characters, because the characters were disposable. The story however was not.
If you check the credits and all the interviews regarding FF10, Sakaguchi was directly involved in the game. Hence why he is the execuitive producer of FF10. He also had other roles in development regarding the story and the gameplay. This guy was directly involved in FF10, thats why it ended up being a complete game.
Well thats what happens when you spend too much money, time and resources on one game engine for one game which take years and years to devlop. That entire investment is lost with that game. If they spilt the narrative of that game into different games they can release more games and make more money, justifying their enornmous expenditure.
It is not about the "fabula nova crystal is". Is about bad script & execution. Fabula is like Ivalice, just a lore in certain FF universe. Ff type-0 has better story, gameplay & character development based on the same lore of FFXIII just different team
It's also worth noting that, unlike FFX which doles out it's story organically through the gameplay, the areas you play through in Final Fantasy 13 are almost always narratively interchangeable. Ask yourself at any point while playing FFX "what am I doing here" and you'll usually have an answer that's relevant to either the plot or to the characters. Ask yourself the same question while playing FF13 and more often than not the answer is usually just "to get from point A to point B".
Which then leads to a problem where most of the story and characterization in the game is expository in nature, rather than, like, an actual series of events where one event leads organically to the next. You run through a pointless area, and then characters just stop and talk about things that have no real relevance to where they are or what they're doing. It's distracting how often it happens.
WOMANpukumaru I am. As one of the few fans of the game I can try to explain what I enjoy about it. I sincerely love the story and it has taken me years to really get it, which I can't say is true of other works of art. The first time I played it I liked all the characters but wondered why Lightning was made so "cold". I didn't really get what the point of Vanille was or why Snow was disliked so much by the other characters(save for Hope) It wasn't until my ps3 got corrupted that I was forced to play it a second time from the beggining( I got to Pulse) so I had to start over. My second play through opened my eyes to how more complex all the characters were. I got Sazh and Snow more thoroughly and I began to appreciate them more. It was here that I began to understand the lore which is vital to even getting why characters act like they do. In my second play through I googled a translation of a short novel that happens before the game and that made me understand why Lightning doesn't like snow that much. (Hint he's irresponsible) I then went to community college, got super busy and didn't come back to the game for a few years. Did my third play through and I began enjoying the game for its mechanics more. By this time I loved the lore and all the characters but still was disappointed by Lightning's coldness. "Why does she have to be such a bitch to Hope? You're powerful Lightning take the little bastard under your wing. Why would you abandon him in the wilderness? Wtf is wrong with you?" Then finally I got the trilogy again for PC. My goal this time was to have it for modding purposes (I am studying 3d animation in college) I read everything this time. All the datalogs and sincerely paid full attention. It wasn't until my fourth fucking playthrough that I got why Lightning was the hero. Snow was the archetypal hero that you would see in many other games and cliche movies. He represents the hero many of us think about when we imagine one. However his naiveness and inability to see the larger picture ends up hurting others and this is addressed head on. If it was another bland story Snow would have just saved the day and I wouldn't have cared three shits for the game. He would have found the stupid crystals and that would habe been that. *cough cough* But no actions have consequences in FF13. Hope's mom doesn't come back. Sazh is more responsible and could have been the hero if it was not for the fact that he gave up a long time ago. His plan when he boarded the train was just to die after he sees his son one more time. The fact that he was gonna shoot Serah shows you he really sees little point in fighting back. An armchair pragmatist. He's like the opposite of Snow. Lightning is the one who pushed through though. She was the one that boarded the train and inspired the others to fight back. She was the one who defeated Anima and stopped other people from getting cursed. She was the one who kept going after her sister got crystallized to protect the group . Remember they were getting hunted by a massive army. She knew she wasn't gonna be allowed time to mourn. A she was given was a quick mental "goodbye " to her sister. (Compared the "hero" snow who stayed behind and got caught. ) She was the one who took the fight to the sanctum (the others just wanted to run away) And my favorite She didn't want to take Hope with her. She knew he was too young and could get killed. When sazh and Vanille decided to not go with her to save coccoon, she tells Hope he is better off going with them if he wants to be safe(which she was right) She really was the most selfless one of the bunch and she was right for wanting to leave Hope behind. She was willing to go alone by herself to help out a society that won't remember her or know of her selfless action. I absolutely love Lightning now and think she is the best part of the series. She's my favorite Final Fantasy character now.
WOMANpukumaru lol chill this is a massive thread on Final Fantasy X vs Final Fantasy XIII. Literally this whole comment section is about people discussing the games. Who spit in your Cheerios?
I was pissed with FF13's bizarre plot choices. Because the characters never explained where they are, where are they going and where they fell into, I honestly thought the frozen lake was a new world that when I went to ffwiki to understand what the hell Coccon is supposed to be I was spoiled what happened to it in the ending. It was that bad.
Don't need to understand about Cocoon right away. However, the teleportation between random places in FFXIII was stupid, (like why and how did I go to Lake Bresha?) but it didn't stop me from loving the game. The rest made sense. After crashing into Vile Peaks, Sazh and Vanille tried to run away from their problems, so they go to Sunleth Waterscape, and then Nautilus. Hope tried to go back to his home with Lightning in Palumpolum to tell his dad about his mom's death.
This actually; so many times in the early chapters the narrative had me assuming we'd left Cocoon, only to find, whelp, we're still on Cocoon. I got mislead by the lake too.
That was always something I loved about X's story, was how Tidus and the player discovered new information and learned about the world together. That's one of the biggest differences between X and XIII for me: XIII feels like it builds a world around the story it wants to tell, and so it forces all these confusing things about its world to try and make that story itself, and you never feel like you know enough even. X's world is well-defined and interwoven with the story in a meaningful way that makes both the main plot and the world of Spira absolutely masterful in execution. It boils down to this: X was built so that every piece would fit together perfectly and create something complete and seamless by the end of it, between the main plot, the world, and even its characters. XIII feels like they focused on the basic structure of the story and MAYBE the characters (some of whom feel weak in terms of personality and development tbh) and then slapped on a world to try and fit around the awkward shape that the story was, and it just didn't quite fit in all the most important places.
The most damming problem of 13 was the melodramatic drivel everyone made speeches at each other. Wasn't a natural character interaction in the first 10 hours. Didn't help that the game auto played itself like a rail shooter where your only interaction was choosing which rail and mindlessly pressing x.
I restarted XIII recently and everything Snow did made sense to me until he stayed behind to mine out Serah from the crystal. You'd probably be melodramatic too if your girl got turned into a rock.
I could say the exact same about FFX. There wasn't realistic character interaction in that entire game. Hell, if the voice acting is any indication, I'd think there weren't any character interactions in FFX at all. Also, unlike FFX and most other FF games, pressing X doesn't get you anywhere in FFXIII. It's got easily one of the most complex and dynamic battle systems in the series, requiring you to actively and constantly manage your team. It's just in a slightly different way than normal, so ignorant people like you continue to spew this false narrative bullshit.
This video is amazing. Something you forgot to mention about the FFX's Sphere Grid is the ability to recreate the Spheres. You can fill the empty nods to make your characters stronger but you can also delete the slots already on the sphere to either replace the ones that have low stats upgrades to stronger ones or just delete it to weaker your characters for testing maybe? or challenges although I guess starting a New Game would make more sense. Years ago, I made a college research paper about the same topic and covered most of what was presented here haha (For those wondering, the teacher liked it, but I don't remember what was the topic and how I chose it)
Enemis of Cocoon. Edit: I like how easily X let you make overpowered characters. Not easily as in "no effort," but as in "We won't stop you." My Yuna started out the best healer, but by the end of the game she had all of Lulu's best offensive magic and then some. Powerful magic, powerful summons, and powerful healing spells made her the cornerstone of all three of my full playthroughs. I played XIII for around 20 hours, most of which was spent grinding because the game is poorly balanced on top of being poorly designed.
All character are the same at the end of FFX, the only difference is their Overdrive (and Summon for Yuna). In FFXIII, the character are all different at the end (for example, Snow is the best healer after Hope). Poorly balanced you said ? Which one ?
When I played FFXIII, near the 70% of the story, I was miserable, I just wanted it to end, everything was horrible, the combat system, the characters, the story, the leveling system. I've never played it again, I even sold the game because I was sure I would never play it again. Meanwhile, I've bought and played the other ones multiple times, even the ones that where hated a little bit more by the community because they still had something fun about them, like FFX-2 but FFXIII is just the worst game I ever bought and played.
They spend too much time talking about how they don't know what their focus is, and just ranting about l'cie and fal'cie. I do appreciate how the characters grow to bond with each other and work together, but you have to slog through a lot to get there.
Legit, exactly my feelings. I tried to like it, cause I bought it the week it was released at full price, and once I got 2 thirds the way through, and it dawned on me that the journalist reviews were bs and the game wasn't getting any better, I began just playing out of obligation because, hell, I had already put in 25 hours.
The key difference between Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XIII is that it's basically a case of style over substance. FFX is more focused on actually giving the player an interesting experience as they explore the world of Spira, by actually having you interact with the world it's set in. FFXIII, on the other hand, has an overly pretentious story about fighting destiny while it seemingly cares more about being an anime in video game form rather than, you know, _a video game_, and that's the problem, FFXIII focuses far more on style while FFX is more about substance.
Definitely understand where you're coming from. I really would have loved to thoroughly gone through cocoon as fugitives, but there just wasn't a lot there with you being dragged out of places as soon as you get there. Nautilus for me was a big let down because it was all about spectacle and you couldn't really enjoy it without going on a chocobo chick hunt and fighting more enemies.
You didn't get the video. I recently finished FFXIII and I don't see what you are talking about. Mainly because the story once you get the hang of it it's interesting and character development is deep. Gets to a point where you actually care about the characters and their fate. Also the visuals and soundtrack are amazing.
I think a large part of the issue with 13 is that there's no sense of world continuity. Like, in X, most cutscenes take place in the area you're in, and it's up to the player to move the party to a new area. But in 13, everytime you enter a new area, it's through a cutscene. Beyond that, you don't just travel to the next area in the cutscene, you travel to some far away area from where you just were everytime. This serves to make it feel like you're just walking to and from the next cutscenes. Compared to X, where it feels like you're exploring the world.
I'm surprised you didn't also compare the weapon systems. X lets you actually customize your weapons with different skills. XIII calls it weapon customization but is yet again another linear progression system. One that actively punishes experimentation through hidden mechanics.
Ironically, visual and archetype-wise Snow and Tidus have a lot in common- arrogant blond jock type who has little experience in the real world until now. And yes, people got annoyed with Tidus at certain early parts too. The difference between them? Tidus matured. He grew out of it. Seeing all the suffering in Spira and Auron's lessons made him realize what's really important.
Haha. While I've already outlined my argument, I admittedly haven't played FFXIII as much, so what do you consider the big differing factor between them besides name and context? Why do we hate one and like the other as a protagonist?
A friend pointed out to me that in FFX, if you have Auron go through his Spheregrid pathway, and then have him go through Tidus and Wakka's, gaining their respective agility and accuracy specialities, you effectivly turn him into Old Man Guts from Berserk.
Each character in FFX has a different role in battle: Tidus: a Nimble fighter to fight Nimble enemies Yuna: Our healer and, later in game, our High Mage as well Lulu: Our elemental mage (Her Celestial Weapon is too hard to get, so you may switch to Yuna late game) Auron: Has piercing weapons to Armored enemies and is a Debuffer (breaks) Wakka: Ranged weapons for flying weapons and is also a Debuffer (ailments) Rikku: Alchemist, Thief and Machinist (dismantle machines) all in one. Kihmari is our Joker, jack of all trades. Is both Blue and Red mage. But FF13... Everyone can be everything But also limits you in how many chars you have in the chapter, which elements that character can cast and turn and turning a battle strategy more than just select a spell to cast into enemies weakness. Also they turned the "main character death" mechanic into a plague. Persona does this better!!
I'm a new gamer of final fantasy. My first one was 10, it's still my favorite. I mean I played every final fantasy and they are two games that I like before final fantasy X (V and VI). X, was amazing and I can come back to it and still enjoys it. X-2 is very good imo. XII is huge and there is so many things to discover, great too. And XIII, the story is entertaining and characters are great for me, some scenes are so well made, you can deny that. In the end of the day, it's juste a matter of taste
Thank you so much for this video. I'm in the minority in that I actually liked FFXIII, but I also recognize that it is incredibly (INCREDIBLY) flawed, especially compared to earlier FF games. I would often compare it to FFX, but I could never articulate it in the way that you did in this 15-minute video. Thank you for putting a voice to this comparison.
FFX have a better storytelling, even though you know what to expect in the next chapter. (you know that you will defeat sin since the beginning of the game, you know that Tidus fall in love with Yuna since he first met her, etc) FF XIII? You didn't even understand "why Lightning do this, Why Snow do that, why Hope hate this, why Vanille love that" for the first half of the game. You didn't understand what is fal cie, what is L'cie, differences between Cocoon Fal Cie and Pulse Fal Cie (seriously i though Fal Cie like some kind of evil organization at the beginning of the game)
13 trilogy was my first game into final fantasy, as a newcomer i was able to understand the game and bare,y looked at the datalog although i did only for parts like falcie history etc. imo its not really that complicated for me. yes ffx has done better in parts of storytelling and progression with lore n all i agree. especially with game leveling design and pacing. ff13 throws u ina loop quite a bit but i always got the jist of it hahah. each game is gonna be different of course, diff gameplay, camera angles, etc. learning to appreciate the flaws in 13 made me love it more. again i agree with everything said in this but it does sound 13 gets shitted on too much?? compared and the degraded instead of giving some bitsa props for what it did right. but i dont wanna sound like a weirdo and be like peeps gotta do that i juist wish it was given more appreciation even if its bad at least for the music and design (not linearity). i love both games and see both flaws in each and appreciate for what they both are and do.
FF13 was missing Sakaguchi. Even though Spirits Within bombed hard, he should have never left the company. Dude was way too hard on himself. The company was on its way to bankruptcy, and he was the engine that brought the company out of the dark ages and skyrocketed around FF7.
Even worse about the "hidden" chests in FF13--sometimes they do hide them. Sometimes they expect you not to turn around in the starting area of your hallway. Sometimes when you cross from one path to another, the hallway splits between where they want you to go next, and where you've already been, and they expect you not to take the one that goes against the flow of the rest of the hallway, because that's not where the progression is. They hide chests behind the hallway. Drives me crazy.
I think you were the only person who said why FFX and FFXIII was different despite both being linear. FFX tells you everything about its world, with breaks in between. FFXIII tells you about its world, but out of order, and all of the info on different characters and places are in the datalog, which gets updated as you go through the story. To know the full story of FFXIII, you would either already know the characters, or constantly check the datalog, which again updates as you go through the story.
For me, XIII has a brilliant story, bogged heavily down by poor writing and directing. There are so many little things that could have fixed this. But I'll focus on one, better villains. These villains, Yaag, Jihl, and Bart are all terrible. Jihl does nothing, Bart just laughs and gets his ass kicked every time you fight him, and Yaag goes woefully underdeveloped. Leaving me scratching my head every time you encounter them. What could have fixed them? For one, make Jihl and Yaag the primary antagonists for the majority of the game, with more interactions with the heroes. Make Jihl someone who wants to capture l'Cie for scientific reasons and curiosity. While making Yaag someone who wants to murder the heroes, bent on revenge against the l'Cie for one of them killing his family. Finally, make Bart someone who approaches the heroes as a "friend", someone who "helps" them along their journey, subtly leading them to his own goals. But he never reveals himself as the real villain until near the end, with the added twist that everyone has been duped and played right into his hands. This alone would have elevated the story tremendously, I feel. Also, one other thing that could have helped, remove the Ceith from the story. They make utterly no sense at all. I mean, if the fal'Cie wants something done, then turning your agents into mindless monsters won't do it. But here's a simple fix, have the l'Cie begin to lose their memories the longer they take. All of them, except for their focus. This would actually make sense, with the added bonus of some potentially very emotional scenes. Like what if Snow forgot Serah, or Hope forgot his mother but the other's didn't?
I just thought of something else for added conflict and depth to the villains. Make Yaag Lightning's mentor and lover, and make Jihl Sazh's wife. This would add so much weight to when you inevitably have to fight both, and would make them more than just your run of the mil villains.
QUEENDOM Story, plot and lore are three different things. Story is what it's about, plot is the events within the story, and lore is the mythology of the story. So for me, the story about a group of cursed people fighting the gods that cursed them is a great story. The plot is an absolute mess, however, with hardly any development of the characters, world, or mythology. It just thrusts you into it without establishing anything, and expects you to just read up on it in the datalog. Which is a terrible way to tell your story. I mean, one of the first spoken lines in the game is, "I'm not a l'Cie." That's probably one of the worst lines you could possibly write near the beginning of any story. But yes, I do agree that the lore is probably one of the game's strongest aspects. It just would have been nice if it was actually told to us within the story, and not shoved into the datalog.
Yes, we choose to pronounce it "Tie-dus" and not the official pronunciation "Tee-dus".
Warbot Honestly I prefer Tie-dis than Tee-dus
It sounds so much better
tis ti tus, not titt us, the name sounds like its sucking-tit-ius, but even though it still sounds garbled like tittius, its titus :D
I call him Ratchet
ruclips.net/video/IQLOazsVYoc/видео.html
Meg Ryan
I want to also point out something about FFX, and it's that the linearity makes sense in the context of the plot. It's a pilgrimage, there is only one path. Every summoner goes on it, just like Yuna and her party.
And the closer you get to the end, the more serious it gets! Arriving at Zanarkand was just a wow moment. It all lead to that. The fun in the beginning and the trepidation and trials in the middle.
And as you get closer to the end, and the party doesn’t want to have the same fate as the rest, the game ironically opens up with areas like the calm lands. It’s like symbolism of the party going down a different path than the rest
Eh the same is true of 13 though, you are actively on the run from the army until you touch down on Pulse. 13 has a lot of issues but justifying the linearity isn’t one of them
I agree 13s story is amazing
@Jacopo Cesselli see the "freedom" in x after you get the airship is just an illusion, the only reason to return to previous areas in x is for chests you may have missed, but none of it is actually required sooo having said that the "freedom" is more of a giant sandbox area then 13's and the sidequests in 13 on granpulse you are actually saving souls of the lcie that came before, every sidequest in 10 is about saving yourself and no one else really, and sides imo 13 is as great as 6 if not better story wise and character wise :D i often say its a 3d 3part remake of 6
"FFXIII is a straw.
FFX...is a silly-straw."
That sounds so stupid and funny, but it's like, the BEST analogy and 100% accurate.
Probably just a bit better if FFXIII isn't represented as a bendy straw.
My three-cents would be that it also has the benefit of not being overtly judgmental. Nothing is wrong with you if you prefer a normal straw instead of a silly-straw...and even if you prefer a silly-straw you can still enjoy a normal straw for what it's worth.
@Manannan anam I think if 13 followed through with versus but then again if It followed through XV would never would have happened. I think the chemistry between lightning and noctis would happen but I think it would only happen on dissidia only. To further build both games' story lines
Someone Gmlyn0901 Nah. We’d still get a FF15. It would just be whatever idea they probably have planned for FF16.
@@superlombax1561 but if its like the other mc is done the quest on the other world and goes to another as a reward and meets the significant other in the other world. Like a complicated isekai that would mean the devs thought about it
I hear that after FFX’s release, there were college courses dedicated to understanding the mechanics of Blitzball...
The mechanics of passing to a defender, rushing, passing to tidus, and using jecht shot?
@@notoriousb3498 or getting a single score then passing back and forth between your defenders for huge exp. More if you have level 3 passes
Damn. I wish I took that class in college 😂
@@MahoganyBlack blitz is easy once you get the mechanics of it
@@jadecrystal2486 I agree! I played Blitzball for hours on PS2. I had a lot fun with it
X uses a very convenient trick that Tidus isn’t expected to know everything and his culture shock is the player’s - it makes the infodump a lot less... awkward, and they even play with it by withholding information from Tidus and the player about Yuna’s expected fate.
FFX is just a better told story, and my guess is that the guff in XIII isn’t the linearity, but the pacing and the padding.
The good ol' "isekai", "fish out of water", or "stranger in a strange land" brand of storytelling!
That's a really great point actually! We are learning everything with Tidus, whereas all the characters know everything at the start of XIII so the exposition feels tedious and unnatural
@@lugbzurg8987 Except Isekais are usually power fantasies, and the personed Isekaid usually get their way.
Tidus gets called out multiple times, because he doesn't know the culture of the world he's brought on.
@@boxtupos7718 FFX is a good Isekai story with a lot of twists
Stranger in a strange land, baybeeeee. One of the better renditions of it I’ve seen, though, tbh. And it helps a ton that the terminology isn’t bizarrely complex like XIII’s.
In FFX, you're just as confused as the protagonist. As it all unravels, the world is gradually fleshed out piece by piece, for us and tidus respectively.
FFXIII on the other hand has everyone in on the story except for you, and it remains that way throughout.
I really think that's the key difference.
Did you literally ever play Final Fantasy X? Since when do people treat Tidus respectfully for not knowing anything? Nevermind the fact that "Sin's toxin" is probably one of the weakest reasons as to why the remaining cast would ever believe Tidus' story about not knowing where he comes from. Considering the many broken and confused husks we've seen being the victims of the toxin, you'd think people with vast knowledge of how the world works would immediately recognize Tidus is not whatsoever affected by it and that something must be going on. Regardless of the fact that the entire cast is a bunch of blithering idiots, they also treat Tidus like a blithering idiot. Forcing him to bumble about all over the place, shaking their head everytime Tidus says something unbelievably fucking stupid or literally shoving him into elevators he shouldn't be on, so that he gets plot exposition on the way down.
A literal child understands that maybe it's not such a great idea to go into the Cloyster of Trials since everybody around him makes such a big fuss not to *and tells him not to*, yet Tidus does. A literal child understands that when they say Auron reeks of death, they're not talking figuratively, yet Tidus still smells him like an actual buffoon. Equally, it's not difficult to understand that talking to someone about a certain person repeatedly after they've told you not to is probably a bad idea. None of these are Tidus "being as confused as the player". They are Tidus being an actual fucking moron. NOBODY in our side would struggle with these things. Hell, I almost gouged my own eyes out with how aggressive I facepalmed when after Tidus is rescued by Rikku and EXPLICITLY told by her NOT to tell anyone he comes from Zanarkand, he thinks it's probably a fantastic idea telling the very first people he meets after washing up (Wakka and the entire Aurochs roster) that he's the star player of the Zanarkand Abes, within the first 10 seconds of meeting them. It paints him as such an actual gigantic idiot that I'd think it must've been on purpose because no writer attempting to write a proxy protagonist would ever ask the player to identify with such a bumbling fucking buffoon within 20 minutes of the start of the game.
@@mamayareborn nah tidus is cool and he does the right thing by disrespecting yevon
@@mamayareborn Bruh show me on the Doll where Tidus Blitzball'd you
@@mamayareborn "Respectively" is not the same as "respectfully".
The former means "In respect to the order listed". The latter means "With respect"
It's just like death stranding in that aspect
As the old saying goes: show, don't tell. I remember playing both these games for the first time. Within 15 minutes, I got a grasp of FF10. It SHOWED me what I needed to know - the main character, the basic premise, the main mystery, combat system, and the villain. FF13, on the other hand, felt like reading a textbook while trying to learn French at the same time.
I would say half is the jargon. You "felt like reading a textbook while trying to learn French at the same time" because the words used are different than what you are used-to. You ARE learning 'French'...in fact "l'Cie" looks a lot like French for "the sky"/"heaven" ("le ciel"). And I don't think that's a coincidence.
Equating the words to simpler concepts (say, "holy magic") intuitively makes the story a lot simpler to understand. My first time playing the game (which I was borrowing from my brother's girlfriend) I was able to do that immediately and recognized in the first 15 minutes, to put it in more-familiar terms... you start as "Force-Sensitive" "Rebel Faction" trying to "Blow up the Death Star".
I enjoyed FF13, and your description is spot on😂🤔👍
Very elementary review. You actually have to think about the game when your not playing.
I mostly agree, but even the likes of Xenogears and Xenosaga, which you are almost guaranteed to not be able to follow along, were still very enjoyable.
RadiusZero my take is i play games for 2 reasons...great story or great gameplay loop. I can overlook one aspect if the other is airtight...such as the original Last of Us. I also don't mind if the story is mainly available in menus or item descriptions like dark souls or doom 2016, granted the gameplay loop is airtight. the gameplay in ff13 is beyond pointless. If all you need to do is set a paradigm and autoattack, you're spending more time watching than playing. FF7 remake got this right. Hopefully SE can stop fucking it up from this point on.
FFX: Lulu's Victory Pose
Player: SOLD!
But i like Yuna, she is sexy on summoner attire!
@@umbakarnask3844 How does one preach personal preference but then say that everyone who feels opposite is hateful? Are they not just expressing their own personal perspective?
Pity that she's only useful in the rock-paper-scissor random battles of the main story.
I love Lulus big anime tiddies
I remember my friend in middle school calling them "Lulu's lulus,' lol.
10 was a masterpiece of storytelling. It was both beautiful and sad.
The world, the characters, the music, everything.....just utterly perfect.
Perfectly boring. I still don't get why people like it so much 🤷
@Kyle Baggett hahahahaha 9 was perfect, sorry to tell you.
@@rominabonanno you are trying to being a joke
@@OgaKunieda actually no, for me X is one of the worst FF 🙂 Character design and acting were awful, the story isn't engaging, the settings were dull. I struggled to finish that game 🤷
@@rominabonanno WHO FUCKING CARE ?
I think one thing worth mentioning is that in FFX, Tidus has zero knowledge of Spira. This results in all of these interactions with NPCs that end up educating Tidus AND the player on the world of Spira. In other words, they're taking advantage of Tidus' cluelessness as an opportunity to build the player's understanding of Spira through interactions with people in that world. The problem with XIII's story (and XV's as well, in my opinion) is that NOBODY really understands what's going on. Interactions with NPCs provide next to nothing regarding the world or story, and you're left with this weak-ass data log that is feeding you info through some 3rd person narrator. In both games, it all culminates in this "pulling back the curtain" sequence late in the game where everything is supposed to become clear to the player. FFX does this progressively, with Tidus realizing that Yuna is trying to sacrifice herself, realizing that his father is Sin, and that he is just a dream created by Yu Yevon. FFXIII, on the other hand, feels much more abrupt, and even when the "true villain" reveals himself late in the game, it just leaves you thinking to yourself "what the fuck is happening right now".
fish out of water.
I agree. The main villain is introduces early in FF13 but just as the leader of the government and aside from a short section in the Datalog he is never mentioned again until shortly before you go fight him around 2/3 point of the game. And I liked him as a villain, but he showed up way too late in the game for me. The game really needed it's main antagonist to have more presence earlier on. And unlike the Black Waltzes, Gilgamesh, the Turks, Ultros, the Four Archfiends, and Seymour, the secondary antagonists are just forgettable.
Even as a huge fan of FFXV I will agree it suffers from the same "exposition" problems that FFXIII does. FFXV maybe isn't AS bad, but you still run into issues where you're like "Wait...who the fuck is Ravus? Oh okay he's Lunas brother. But wait why is he working with this emperor dude? Wait..what has the emperor been doing the entire game? Oh, the emperor is a fucking monster that we have to fight now". I love FFXV but I completely agree it gets convuleted real quick with very vague story exposition.
Exactly. It starts from zero, and Final Fantasy XII, XIII, XV, etc. start in the middle of a commotion.
A spoiler warning would have been nice. I wanted to play FFX in the near future. It seems like I won't have to anymore.
FFX and FFXIII are both guided tours, but X is a vacation, where XIII is a facility inspection. FFX says "Oh, we're just playing Tiddlywinks over here, wanna play?" where XIII feels like "This is the Tiddlywink sector, see Tiddlywink, under subsection NCC-1701-D for more information."
I think the difference is, that S-E remembered they were making a Video Game when they were making FFX. There are all these little side activities to do and things that flesh out the world. While the normal video game suspensions of disbelief have to occur, the player doesn't mind these because its an open invitation. "Have fun play game." They didn't let the linearity get in the way of having fun.
Nice Best Enterprise inclusion.
Also, solid point.
So your complaint about ff13 is that the locations were too "run down" or just another guarded sector. But you understand the plot that they were being transported as branded to a place to kill them and you wanted it to look like paradise? You expected the heroes who were being chased by not only the army but the villains of the game to be able to walk into any city as wanted criminals free? And you understand in the ff13 universe l'cie are seen as monsters who are feared by the entire normal population right?
You fall into the category of just another dumbass who payed no attention to the story but complains about things that make total sense. How the fuck you going play a ff game and not care about the story... That's retarded.
@ slayerr4365, Exactly... wrong my friend. You mentioned the very part of the game that unfortunately you yourself are not noticing made the game "bad."
Yes the story forced the characters in 13 to become outcasts, so of course you cant have at a little 'fun' side quest here and they're since they're on the run, BUT that shouldn't stop SquareEnix themselves from find a way to incorporate that fun into said story, so in that way, SE shot themselves in the foot and basically thought as you did: "It doesn't fit the plot, the aesthetic, so yeah, no 'fun' for our characters," and in short, that unfortunately meant no fun for us playing the game and having major parts of it feel like a slog.
The story concept was good, but SE's own execution of it as a fun video game for us to play, sucked. It could've been handled way better than it was is probably the general consensus of us who played the game.
I mean are you stupid or what? Not having side quests doesn't make it the bad game, (Thank ff15 for proving that by being a terrible game with hundreds of side quests) I simply said and stand by that one criticism you can have about the game is that there is not enough side content for a bit more character development. Saying that alone makes it a bad game or ruins the story is retarded. And to be quite honest even that point became regardless in the future with ff13x2 and ff13 LR, as a collection of games it gave everything the fans bitched and cried about. In x2 you can go to any place at any time thanks to time travel so kids shut up about saying linear. And LR is basically a side quest simulator with a tiny bit of story in there.
As a series of games they gave everything the fans asked for. What other huge developers actually go out of there way to give exactly what fans complain about even though for the real fans it was never really a problem in the first place? This is why the final fantasy fanbase are just a bunch of cunts. They give so much more than any other company yet still somehow have the most kids bitching about whatever they do. You can't please 12 year olds.
To be honest, they actually had one giant wide open aspect they could have used to add as many fun side quests and minigames they wanted, and they never used it: The past.
One of the things that FF13 does over and over again is to show us the memories of the cast members from happier times to rub in just how bad they are feeling after everything that's happened, so that's a wide open untapped source of fun in case they wanted to include some, just have character X remember playing minigame Y and then snap out of their reverie to deliver some more cringe worthy dialogue later on. =p
Just Snow alone would be good for at least five! You just know he won the pie-eating contest.
i fcking love me some final fantasy 10
best game ever, still and forever
tell me about it.. since the remaster FFX and release of FF15. I finished FFXV once and I'm still playing FFX and X2 after countless years.
X2 was shit though. took out a bunch of what made ffx awesome, and turned it into fapping material with no aeons, no team composition, no turn based strategic fighting, no real urgency to the plot, a downgraded version of the surroundings, no weapon building, no ... you get my point -.-
Derva Kommt von hinten I still find it fun to play, x2 that is. The creature creator adds another layer to it. Capturing and releasing. X is my game though. I can’t tell you how many times I have replayed it. Doing another run through right now with the plan to max everyone. 99k hp here we come.
trying to max out luck.... its a drag though
I really didn't mind XIII's linearity as I get that it's because of their "fugitive" status. What I didn't like was how they shove the whole story so fast I'm choking. The lore of the Gods in XIII is amazing though. It's just they rush things up.
And Hope. He's such a weak character.
Except the _fugitive_ plot point in XIII doesn't even make sense, story-wise the only way folk can tell the cast are fugitives is by looking up the characters L'cie mark that's easily covered up by clothes and whatnot and until the party meets Hope's dad they weren't publicly reveled ad L'cies, so they had no reason whatsoever to keep a low profile up until then. There's even a point in which both Vanille and Sazh go to a carnival and make zero effort to hide themselves, and it's probably the worst level in the entire game because there's nothing to do in it (you can't talk to anyone, no mini-games, interactions, etc.)
Also funny enough FFX has a similar plot point: there's a point in the game when the entire party are labeled as traitors and thus considered fugitives... but that does not mean that suddenly every level/area in the game from there on is devoid of any personality/interaction (mini-games, Npc/towns, and other events).
Point is the game (XIII) handled the level design pretty badly and it had nothing to do with the characters being fugitives.
@@Xfushion2 To be honest, even if the public didn't know they were fugitives, there's still no reason for them not to hide at least out of safety.
Y'all mind if I _become cocoon's enemy?_
yes, enemy of cocoon
Heroes never die.
Pluse see!
I AM A PULSE L'CIE.
I WILL KILL YOU ALL.
FFX allows you to BACKTRACK at any given point in the story once you finish Luca. You can literally run all the way back to Besaid if you want to. 13 just closes the door behind you with each new area.
You are also wanted in X. Yevon, which is basically the government as well as the main religious group, wants you dead for half of the story, but that doesn't stop the party from doing whatever they want.
because X isn't linear, thats why lol
@Lindsey Lewis, I don't remember being hunted in X-2 by the government.
Xiii is one of the most un-interactive games I have ever played. Since video games are an interactive medium, this is a real problem
billyblackburn87 XV is the bigger bullshit! Dont shit in anybody cereal!
I invested more time in playing Blitzball in FFX than in FFXIII as a whole.
hahaha this is so true xD
Asimov Vomisa likewise, and it was more fun even
Well to be fair Blitzball is way more enjoyable too.
I believe this is true for me as well
I made one goal in my whole FFX blitzball career, could never figure that game out XD
I completely agree. I played X when I was only like ...idk, 10? 12? I may have missed some finer details as a kid but I understood the overall story and world. I tried to play XIII AS AN ADULT and I was so confused, I had no idea what was going on. The terminology in the game was so ridiculous, I felt like the writers were just trying to make themselves sound smart. The story jerked around and I couldn't finish the game. I had no feeling of connection to the characters, their purpose, the story or ultimately - the game's world. THAT is why I dislike XIII. The fact that it is linear has nothing to do with it. In fact, X is arguably my favorite FF title. A successful game needs to build the player's understanding of the world organically through the story and character interactions. A datalog is a piss poor attempt to cover up lack luster story and world building.
Did you read the Datalogs that the game was constantly updating for you?
@@SamoIsKing A game shouldn't force you to read things that distract you from the game to get the story (especially when the dialogue just tells you exactly what was said or told in ff13 scenes) as in the game should be understandable as i play and watch the scenes. Tho im going to just say right now that i was like 15 when i first played ff13 and i totally understood what was going on tho maybe its cause im just good at comprehension than most ppl (?) idk. I honestly can't figure out the hate for the game's story (Just the first game. The other 2 are just bad.) The linearity is pretty fair point. The gameplay is nitpicky imo cause honestly anyone who says that ff13 is too ez then you either haven't played ff13 or just farmed to the point where you can libra and use auto to beat. I would just tell that person to actually play thru the game's story without farming cause its possible. Ive done it on 2nd and 3rd playthru.
Ezi Jackson its called good writing. You can explain the story through dialogue in 10 because it follows the “fish out of water” narrative, and the main protaganist isnt from that world, just as the player is. In 13 all the characters are from the same place, so it doesnt make sense if they explain whats going on to each other. Its like at the start of 7 where Barret is explaining to Cloud (who he thinks is ex-SOLDIER at the time) what a Mako reactor does. It doesnt make sense, its pointless exposition and its bad writing. XIII solved that problem by only having characters express their emotions, motivations and reactions and put the explanations in datalogs.
I first played ffx when i was 5 yr old and ffxiii when i was 9, i dont need to say how many hours i was playing to do the bevelle cloister of trials, even though im not an adult yet i still understand ffx perfectly, but when i played ffxiii i couldnt understand anything
SamoIsKing "Its like at the start of 7 where Barret is explaining to Cloud (who he thinks is ex-SOLDIER at the time) what a Mako reactor does. It doesnt make sense, its pointless exposition and its bad writing."
It's not pointless whatsoever. Barret didn't know what Cloud did as a SOLDIER, and none of the SOLDIERS are ever found at mako reactors except during specific story beats. SOLDIERS are for combat, so unless they need to defend a reactor from invaders, there's no reason for them to ever be there. It makes perfect sense that Barret would think Cloud wouldn't know about them.
In addition to that, think about Barret's point of view. Shinra is the big, evil corporation which is draining the life energy from the planet. From his perspective, he probably thinks that Shinra wouldn't ever tell the SOLDIERS anything about the reactors, because why would they need to know?
They're just Shinra's muscle.
Putting vital story information into datalogs is an absolutely terrible idea for a game who's central focus is the story and how the characters relate to that story. We need to see these important things happen in front of our eyes. As much as I hate ham-fisted dialogue that directly tells you what's happening, sometimes it's necessary when the setting requires such a drastic suspension of disbelief (as fantasy often does)
For a fully voice-acted game with stunning visuals like XIII, forcing you into the menus to read about information that you should have just gotten in the last cutscene is a joke. It's insulting to the intelligence of the player because it feels like the devs assume you as the player are too stupid to notice that things aren't making sense, and that you should just be happy with the pretty visuals. The datalog feels like a band-aid solution added at the last minute to try and fix the fundamental issues with XIII's story delivery.
I put about 40 hours into 13 and your quick 30 second description of the game gave me more info about the game then I ever got in those 40 hours of play time.
Sad to know that you have to read all the info that is on the bestiary and stuff to learn about whats happening.
I actually started with Final Fantasy 1 and its a great starting point. Very simple and easy, and I feel that just getting through Final Fantasy II would also be good, which is what I'm doing right now, as it has you thinking more about weapon selection. But I like to do things in order... which is sad since I don't think I'm going to get to play Final Fantasy XI or XII unless they come to steam.
FF XI is online, so normally, it is out of the final fantasy normal series... as for FF XII, it will come out on Steam on February 5,2018 and it is the international version with tweaked mechanics of the normal version.
Luxcaelym Productions 15 is confuse not xiii and u dont need to read the bestiary
You won't play XI period, because it's an MMO, and pretty much dead. I do suggest you play XII. It was released last year for the PS4, and well worth playing.
Spira = living breathing world and culture
Cocoon & Pulse = HD wallpapers with flavor text
13's world just felt like disposable backdrop for the characters to have their moments in. I'd say the most telling part is how Cocoon & Pulse are just outright gone by Lightning Returns. Nobody seems that interested in the lost world either, and even Nova Chrysalia is treated as a throwaway land by the story. I see FF10 as a masterclass in worldbuilding, while the 13 trilogy consistently fumbled it.
MrSTVR I think you touched upon something here. All of the character development in XIII (if you can call it that) happened in "Big Moments." You can tell they're Big Moments because characters will stop and have an outburst and come to sudden realizations that's about as organic as my off-brand deodorant.
In X, the character development is pretty slowburn and natural instead of being strictly reactionary. There's a pleasant moment where Tidus realizes Lulu explained some cultural nuance to him without him asking, because she now believes he really isn't an amnesiac suffering from Sin's toxin. It's subtle, and it feels earned at that chapter of the game.
Yeah X has more of a nuance when it comes to character growth and info. It isnt thrown in your face out of nowhere. Even Auron's big reveal had alot of hints throughout the game. You could figure out half of everything just by listening and looking for small details.
Everything bout XIII just feels over the top and forced. Like they needed an excuse to do everything and just thought something up. Wakka's and tidus relation has chappu as a connection. But it isnt over the top or something huggeeee. Its just something small that connects tidus, wakka and lulu. And you see it change throughout the game, not in a over the top scene. Or how all the characters handle yevon and faith in their own way. FFX most dramatic/over the top stuff were saved for moments that deserved it. Yuna's dying(and she wasnt even there), Yunalesca, Jecht and the ending. But those had reasons to be big and didnt come of nowhere.
But i totally agree with that the world in ff xiii feels like a pretty wallpaper. I have no connection with it. Compare that to the moment when you get closer to zanarkand.. The music, the events and when you finally get there. And at the end you just get punched in the face. XIII just feels empty and like actual areas. Just another area i have to walk through..
Hope, Serah, snow and lightnings connection are just blegh, just shuttup and move on.
Ferry yes exactly! Compare finally arriving at the much hyped up Zanarkand to arriving in Oerba, or Sazh and Vanille's relationship compared to Wakka and Rikku's. Hell, even look at the guardians' devotion to Yuna after she's kidnapped compared to the l'cie trying to save Serah. Everything in X feels natural and earns the right to be dramatic. XIII is melodrama compared to X.
Everyone in X has a legit and most important personal reason for being there. Saving Yuna is also something they have to do and maybe more important want to. They have no place to go, want to protect their dear friend and the one who will save Spira. X has the fleeing from a organization that hunts them too, but it isnt an entire game long xD. They also want to bring peace to Spira, with the chance of losing Yuna. Tidus being Yuna's light since he doesnt know.
Ironic because spira is called a spiral of death because of all the death Cult and sin ;)
But yes FFX gave me that feel of a the people are fighting to end the death but by doing so they were actually leading to the destruction to rise anew. You can easily recall characters that were crossing your way and dont seem to be important at first but later played a bigger role. And even thought the main characters werde the only ones with high solution models, every sidecharacter seem to be deep besides having a placeholder Model sometimes.
For me the "linearity" mainly comes from the feeling of being "trapped" in the story. For example you are stuck in an area and have to fight your way forward. That's what really bugs me, I never feel like the characters are safe: no breather, no peaceful moments, no optimism. The main issue for me was the lack of towns. FF13 just felt like a really long struggle
The problem with FF13 for me is like I am feeling TRAP, yes just moving and moving forward, no Illusion of Freedom, horrible pacing, just FORCING TO MOVE FORWARD and moving, and moving, and moving forward. It's feeling like this I only play the game once and never touch it ever again.
That's the entire theme of the game, though. The l'cie are trapped by fate.
That's the biggest failure of that game. It's like watching a movie "80 minutes" and you know something big will happen in 80 minutes later.
Hence, you are trapped with only certain amount of times, it is a horrible for an RPG game since no exploration (wasted time).
For an FPS game, it is understandable, but such story is the worst you could use for RPG with exploration and pacing.
This was an intentional design decision though - the FF13 devs want you to feel like you're forced to move forward on Cocoon because that's what the characters feel like. When they reject the notion that their fate is predetermined and land on Pulse, the game opens up, just like their ideology. This is similar to how survival horror games have bad controls intentionally so you feel more helpless than you're used to in video games.
intentional = good? what!?
X's linearity is built into the plot in a much more convincing way. Yuna and her guardians (sans Auron) feel helplessly trapped in her journey of sacrifice, so the linearity feels like a natural part of that tragic story.
XIII just doesn't do this. At all. And the linearity feels like a grind rather than a natural consequence of the setting.
are you kidding me?If anything X should be less linear because Yuna knows shes going to die and at least wasting timr makes sense from delaying the inevitable.In final fantasy 13 the characters are on the run so being linesr makes more sense.I like 10 more, but come on really.
Totally agree. Each step in the pilgrimage adds weight to the story and it unfurls slowly and deliberately
@@thraitor7819 Uhhh... No. The linearity in X makes way more sense because it's literally a religious pilgrimage to visit specific temples in specific areas that she feels she needs to do to hurry up and bring a calm to the people of Spira. She is selfless in that regard and knew from before she became a summoner that if she did, she would die. Why would she waste time dawdling?
13's Linearity feels extremely forced. From one objective to the next before you get a chance to breathe or even understand the plan/plot in motion.
Justifying X's linear nature while deriding XIII's simply reeks of nostalgia blinders, that's it and this is coming from someone that loved X and XIII equally.
@@thraitor7819 Not to mention the cast of XIII have a "focus", literally a plot device telling them to do specific plot things within an unspecified time limit or die. If that doesn't demand linearity I don't know what does lol.
A huge aspect that makes X feel less linear is also just that there are multiple villains too that make it feel like more is going on. XIII is sorely weak in the villains department. Your focus is always solely on surviving and then solely on killing Barthadelus while in X your overall focus is killing Sin but also saving Yuna from being kidnapped, beating Seymour, etc.
No
Shawn Shuman you clearly didnt play XIII
XenoBlade X-3 played it AND platinum'd it actually.
what? FF10 villains were the monsters (sin spawn) sin him self and the creepy molester dude who wanted to bang yuna. FF13 vilians were the monsters, the army, the fal'cie. Actual other characters in the part and time it's self. And yes time is a big enemy. FF10 didn't feel like the characters were ever in a rush at all.
So yeah... Either you have awful memory, or you are just a bandwagon tard hating on 13 for no reason. But ff13 actually had alot more when it came to enemy and villain diversity.
slayerr4365 There's a stark difference between "villains" and "enemies", just as there's a difference between "story" and "gameplay". Do you really not understand that? Lol
It takes a master class story teller to make a story beloved by all.
"" It takes a smart storyteller to use complicated words. It takes a smarter storyteller to use simple words instead."
I don't even think it takes a smart storyteller to use complicated words. To use them correctly, maybe.
I can't tell if you're serious or JoKing 🤔
Jo King Like Hemmingway's style-- short, strong, smart pieces of writing make for powerful affect on the reader.
Who quoted that?
I prefer a different way of phrasing this. "Anyone can teach a complicated concept to an adult. Only a truly intelligent person can teach that same concept to a 5 year old and be understood.
In ffx you actually visit places and feel like a real person. In ffxiii you just walk along corridors with different walls.
featheredice in short...... Hallways
Not just that, FFX is about a journey, an end goal. Hell they made it clear from the beginning that it was always going to be a linear path so there was no real surprise about it
SoraxStacy147 and the game throws in twists and turns when it comes to how Spira works from the fiends being the souls of the dead not being sent to the farplane to some of the stuff with the summoners
I felt like 13 had so much more potential than what we got in 13. The upgrade skill tree was nice and flashy while not trying to draw too much attention, the cast of characters were great, Sahj, hope, vanille, lightning, etc all had great designs and added their own part to the cast. The story kinda sucked and the combat was meh, also the game was indeed pretty linear. I feel like Square enix has lost their edge since the ps2/6thgen era. 15 has a huge world but it's empty, and it's boring, so much content was cut from 15. and the game doesn't have a good story. it has A STORY. and sure for newcomers final fantasy games can be confusing but removing the really complicated storylines was a bad idea, thats what made the older ones sucessful, 13's story and linearity werent the only reasons they did bad. they just had alot of flaws that added up.
Seriously sounds like youre parroting others opinions. I see this word for word parroting across all subjects and it makes me wonder when I'll come across someone who's not a clone.
Tidus role in FFX is very important due to him having no knowledge on the world he was transported into similar to the player thus making the game much more fun to explore
FFXIII don’t have that advantage and the way the story is told can only be appreciated if you play it several times or read a lot of data logs
FFX is great because like tidus the player is clueless as to what's going on making the story very simple to understand. when you are explained how something works and are still not 100% on board with understanding it tidus feels the same way until you see it for yourself happen. The battle with sin on the highroad is a good example as you see how powerful sin is and understand more how sad the sending is
Exactly. In a sense, Tidus represents the player, and he's so relateable, the things he thinks and says are things we could imagine ourselves thinking and saying. His inner monologues help pull the player into a very personal story that we feel a connection to over time. The way we learn about this new world surrounding Tidus is pretty much as great as they could have made it.
Though if you think about it, we didn't need Tidus in Spira as much as we needed him in Cocoon. Want a description of Spira? "Relatively standard fantasy video game world, but there's an unstoppable kaiju running around." Add a few more lines like "The kaiju can be killed, but it comes back in a few years, but people appreciate the reprieve", and the player has all the explicit exposition that is needed. Everything else could be learned in context. Wakka ranting about how he hates the Al Bhed using machina, and yelling at them that as long as they're around doing that, Sin will never go away, and you could tell us about the world without having to explain it to Tidus, without using any forced or unnatural dialogue.
Cocoon is... weird. A floating city... but it's not all city, some of it is wilderness... being run by gods that are more like giant robots? Why is it floating? Why don't the gods just TALK to people instead of flashing pictures at them? What is this rebellion about? Who the hell could invade from Pulse at the beginning? We go there later and nobody lives there! Cocoon is not a standard setting, and so it needs someone like Tidus much more than Spira did.
Great video. One thing I'd also highlight, is that the routes on FFX felt connected and you saw the change in scenery. Even with something vastly different and seemingly disconnected like Maclania Woods was commented on to be so. Letting you enjoy it as something unusual to be in awe of. You also went back and forth between them, further enforcing the fact that they were neighbouring areas.
Whereas all of FFXIII's routes for the first 20 hours felt disconnected from one another. All looked unusual (Artificially so, with no explanation on why they were like they were) and you didn't go back. Making them feel like levels in a platformer.
swamdono XIII is a conveyor belt, and X is a hiking trip
Dolphinboi Never heard it described like that before but you're right.
This is the argument I always make with regards to X vs XIII. Despite being linear with diverse landscapes, all the zones are connected which makes the world FEEL coherent. XIII feels like a hundred different worlds connected by loading screens.
Something else that bothered me about the world-building was immersion. Characters in Spira behave as if they're informed by their culture and history. People in Cocoon behave like people from modern day Oregon. Spira is just much more richly conceived while most of the levels you go through in XIII have little bearing on the story.
FFX was made by people who knew the heart and soul of what made a good final fantasy game. They weren't just making a game, they were making something they were passionate about and they wanted to share that with the rest of the world. That's why whenever I go back and play it, I can always relate in some way or another. For lack of a better word, the game spoke to me. It resonated with me like few games ever can. FFXiii in my (opinion) were made by people who had a dead line to meet, who lost focus and passion for the median they were working in, whose end goal was to not tell a story but to try and squeeze every last dollar out of the consumer as possible with pointless future sequels. But hey that's just my opinion.
What are you meaning with "pointless future sequels" ?
It seems rather cynical to make such a conclusion about the creators of FFXIII. I don’t consider it a good game, but who’s to say they weren’t passionate about it? The sequels actually give me the impression that they were indeed passionate about it because they listened to the fans’ feedback and did their best to make a better game. XIII-2 is actually pretty good imo, and improves on XIII in most ways. Although I don’t like LR or XIII much.
Jimmy Mackinnon XIII-2 made the worst aspects of XIII the focus at the sacrifice of the depth the combat system had in XIII.
Boyishdude There was depth in Final Fantasy XIII's combat system? I remember just mashing Thunder for 24 hours by which point I finished the game and tossed it aside because I could not be bothered by the game's post-ending nonsense.
Gabriel Chia watch an FFXIII any% speedrun, you'd be surprised at what they can do with minimal stats and equipment.
It does have depth, but it may not seem like it if all you do is spam the same shit like a noob.
Man how I loved FFX I didn't care about how linear it was. And I really loved the environment. Besaid Island with lots of ruins from the civilization wiped by Sin. Same with Miihen Road, when you stop at Rins, and watch that cool sunset on the ocean with the big ruins faraway. Zanarkand was really well designed, and so were their ruins.
RK Belmont don't worry X is not linear well it may sound like it but you are not trapped in the story u can just ignore it and develop your characters amd just go to places u visited before, especially when u reach zanerkand to me I think ffx is a perfect game I don't have any negative thought about it it just too perfect
I played a few FF's before I played FFX (FFVI, FFVII, FFIX) and the linearity in FFX drove me nuts. Granted, Every Final Fantasy is bound to have some linearity, but FFX's really hurt and made me fear the franchise was going in a very poor direction. Still, The environments, plot, and content were enough to keep me entertained until the story really took off after Zanarkand.
FFXIII makes all my worst fears into dreaded nightmares :(
J.K. Brown what about ff12 ? That was fantastic
Daniel Scutaru I'll be honest, I never got a ps2 until the ps4 was already out. Until then, I had only gotten to see people play X and XIII until I finally got to experience the rest of X for myself. I've never knew someone that played XII.
I've heard mixed reviews, but I'd at least like to give it a whirl before I decide on that one, but it's a work in progress. I literally just beat FF2 on my tablet 2 days ago. I'm sure I'll get a copy of FFXII at some point.
@@JKBrown-vv1yw I hate both ff13 and 15 but loved 8 and 9
Let's say that final fantasy 12 has not the best storyline ever (but a really good lore)
The gameplay is really good and is extreme free to grow and grind
Just go for monster trophies , sell them fore money and buy better equipment. I think they add something of mmo there
"It's very ironic for a game themed around fighting against fate, to have such a linear system."
Sums it up.
And he didn't even talk about the equipment system, which also is very linear (and I will say "uninteresting" too) in FF13
I was inticed by XIII because it has a lot of similarities to X. But I could barely finish it.
And I've finished X four times.
MRWhoreoscope four times? Dude you need to pump those numbers up, that's a rookie number.
No that's enough to get the full story plus finishing up whatever you missed. Even two times is enough.
The game doesn't have much replay value besides just enjoying the game.
"Doesn't have much replay value" is subjective. Personally, I've played through X 10+ times and I still can't get enough of it.
jlandejr When I say replay value I mean is there extra content once you finish the main story? Not really. I mean if you played using the traditional spheregrid you can replay it to see what your party can do. But there really isn't anything else to explore if you got all the Aeons, celestial weapons, and all the Jecht spheres.
Like X-2 has replay value because of the multiple endings.
SnakeFace I never got to finish XII because my ps2 died on me. And I haven't gotten the new one yet. But Ivalice is one of the more interesting worlds of FF.
The "interlude" at Hope's house was the first moment I felt genuinely *good* playing FFXIII. I agree the game needed more times like those. The majority of the game was constantly being bombarded by enemies and chased by the authorities and it was just boring and tiring. You have to have up and down times to have a well paced game/story, or you will just become numb to the action and it doesn't have meaning.
Yeah, i even kept a save file when you are in hope's house back when i played this game because it was so refreshing.
Dude, THIS. It was one of my main problems with 13, the game was all fight 5 same enemies, cutscene, fight 5 same enemies, cutscene, chapter done. I felt like the game was just forcing the story along unnaturally by just having random cutscenes and calling it a story. I get they were on the run and stuff, but the pacing just wasn't good. Probably the reason why the Nautilus chapter was my favorite in the game because the focus wasn't on the action for once and it was a nice breather.
Manannan anam Oh yeah, which brings me to another major complaint I had. The battle system is designed for a 3 person party and for literally half the game you only have 2 party members. Killing enemies took just way too long. Not to mention when you DID have 3+ members, you weren’t allowed to switch anyone out or even the party leader until fucking chapter 10 or something. I honestly want to know what Square Enix was thinking
@@BlackWolf207 Also, the game revolves around staggering in order to really hurt the enemies and even grades your performance after battle, but since you do have a 2-character party for such a long time, you WILL have issues staggering enemies and you will constantly get bad grades for your combat performance that on top of the enemies taking literal minutes to defeat. It also doesn't help that the battle system (especially in the beginning) is mostly passive, while in FFX you can and have to choose what you want to do actively.
@@BlackWolf207 I kind of enjoy the battle system. And I personally preffered it, when my team was locked, because I had to work with I had, I never had much issues with combat grades before Grand Pulse. On the other hand the combat system feels more like a puzzle than a combat system, which I personally enjoy, but most likely pretty much everyone else doesn't like. And it feels very active, when you get to a point, where you change paradigms after pretty much every full ATB action to maximize time efficiency.
As someone who has never played a Final Fantasy game before, I'm intrigued to play FFX... XD Would that be a good starting point?
FFX is considered to be one of the better games in the series to start with. Superbutterbuns has an excellent video on which FF to start with so I'd recommend checking that out first. It's called "What Your First Final Fantasy Should Be".
FFX is a fine game to start with. I would say VI, VII, and IX are also excellent choices. Be prepared to deal with old-timey graphics though!
In addition to Warbot's recommendation, Dark Pixel Gaming also suggests good criteria to consider in starting the Final Fantasy series; "Which Final Fantasy Should You Play First?" (ruclips.net/video/1m7kYraln6E/видео.html).
I'm sorry if you already got your answer but FFX is very good to start with. Amazing story, world, characters, and it truly has the FF mark in the game with all the Chicago, summoner, things, minivans, turn-based combat, etc
Living Myth 7 isn't bad but it has aged considerably worse than 9 or 6 and might be best saved for later. I feel that 10, 9, or 6 are the safest bets to make for a first FF.
Something else that I appreciate about FFX is the fact that you're never really forced to go forward, but you WANT to. Sure, there were some times where you literally couldn't go backwards, but I rarely encountered these, because I was so intent on finding the next Aeon or figuring out more about what was going on that it didn't matter. In addition, having the areas be short but unique made them all the more memorable. When you're finally going back to all the old areas, its fun remembering where you were in the story at that point and how your characters evolved. Also, knowing the story and playing the game again, a lot of scenes and lines that seemed insignificant gain a lot more meaning, like Rikku suddenly wanting to say something when Bartello lost Donna cause she knows what happened to her, but ended up just saying, "I just wanted to wish him good luck." Small things like that made the story more compelling.
I finished FFX and FFXIII.
FFX ending made me cry.
FFXIII ending made me wonder if I missed something, like understanding WTF is going on. Up to this day I still don't remember what this game was all about or what was the point of the story.
Loved killing those giant dinossaurs on the only open field, though.
"Fighting Fate" is the point of FF13's story (and it's Barthandelus' battle theme).
Ffxiii-2 ending was bullshit.
FFX ending made me, well actually nothing. As Much as I liked Tidus as a character, I actually hated him as an MC, I also hated how Yuna was the only character to actually "exist" in the story. FFX disappointed me greatly in that the MC was just the storyteller. That formula can work. We have Kyon in The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya as an example on how it could be done. However it was not that well applied in Final Fantasy X, you spend 60 to 70 hours wanting people to aknowledge Tidus existence and contribution to the team. Seriouly play the game again and you see it, Only yuna and Auron get any recognitions, most characters simply ignore the rest including the MC, even the plot Ignores the MC. Most of the time either everyone deals with the problem at the same time, or in the rare cases when Tidus or another character does something, Yuna still gets the spotlight and credit.
This made me hate Yuna as a character because she was pretty much an attention black hole. Things are so excessively centered on her that it becomes obnoxious quite fast, and while the dynamic between the party members is good, their interaction with the world around them is not. We all know how much all guardians love yuna and resent having to sacrifice here for her duty, but for the world Yuna's guardians only amount to Auron it seems. Which is curious because in the Braska's flashbacks we could see that his guardians were all respected by the people. But in Yuna's case, you'll rarely see any mention of Kimahri or Lulu or Wakka, even less of Tidus, curiously enough Rikku seems to get slightly more mentions may because she an Al Bhed and Yuna's cousin. Amd the Al bhen are far more important to the plot than the Besaid villagers(the only people in the world who know every single character in the story).
It's a pity because there could be a more interesting reaction between Tidus and Seymour for example, have the guy aknowledge Tidus in special as a threat due to how Yuna seems to have feelings for him. Much like how Yunalesca was Auron's main target and Yunalesca did recognize him. Or some plot in which Wakka and Lulu could be the main focus as the ones who percieved the threat.
Curiously enough Final Fantasy XII had exactly that, where even Vaan(a character which most players hated in FF XII) did something useful at the end with the cutscenes showing him having a major importance in defeating Gabranth. The game did recognize Vaan's existence despite how he was only there as Balthier's apprentice for most of the story. Some extra cutscenes in the International version also give more depth to Vaan while directly showing him to have deep hatred for the empire(which is only merely aluded at times in the original version, but it plays many more parts in the international version).
@@bloody4558 and this is why i like xiii story. Everyone character has their spotlight and resolution to their problems. The only person i havent seen grown was fang but im still playing but we'll see.
I never payed too much attention on the story back when i played 8,10 and 12 but planning on it later but so far, i like 13 story telling even if its confusing sometime but it doesnt take me that long to understand the story. To me if people doesnt get the story of 13, then you're not paying attention to the game.
@@yongkysiaw6597 I played deep into 13 multiple times and still don't get it. You come from a place of already understanding it. 13 does a terrible job explaining the story. For the most part most people will have to read data logs if they want to understand what's going on. That is not a good way to present story.
"It boils down to this, FF13 is a straw, FF10 is a silly straw"
I like this guy.
It's a dumb analogy, though. A straw is short and efficient. That's why people use it over a silly straw. Not to mention that I don't think either FFX or FFXIII would be described as short or efficient. Both games a long, linear as hell, and spend half the time explaining things to the player that either just happened or are just about to happen. Or both.
Why does nobody mention how FFX's linear story goes off the rails partway through? After having a fun linear romp where your end goal seems clear, a stunning revelation throws everything into doubt and you flee back down the path you had just gone up before being thrown onto a desert island with literally no idea of where to go next? The way that the story is told in FFX is actually more tied to its gameplay than a lot of people think, such as how the opening up of the sphere grid as the group's destinies become hazier and their goals and motives change, allowing them to think for flexibly.
Here's one thing they differ in that really got to me after thinking about both games: Do you care enough about the world to bother saving it? In FFX, absolutely, as you met a great many NPCs who were good and/or interesting people. You get to explore the settlements and talk with people at your leisure. Even after being branded heretics, there are still people who support you. In FFXIII, you spend a few minutes with the NORA crew, and there's Serah and Dajh that are in crystal that your crew won't shut up about, but that's it, 40 hours go by and every other NPC you meet dies (usually by attacking you). You also have to shop "online" instead of talking to a living person, and there are no people at all on Pulse (the Datalog strikes again here, there are actually some interesting lore bits about the last people on Pulse that aren't "discussed" in-game). The rest of Cocoon hates your guts, and you never get to connect with anyone, so why bother? If you never get to meet anyone else in the game, then you're relying completely on having your main cast be super interesting and likable (which FFXIII's is not). At least FFXIII lets you skip cutscenes, so its speedrun is almost 4 hours faster than FFX's.
All jrpgs tend to be linear, because of the story. The problem is how they deal with that, or masked given some "liberty" to explore.
FFX had everything going for it, the first truly 3d FF with voice, the graphics, the lore of Spira, characters, etc.
And let's not forget, the popularity of MMOs, open world rpgs, and FFXII also divided the fans, I think mixing all of that affect how fans saw FFXIII.
Final fantasy 10 simply tells a better story way better in a better environment. The story is do well fleshed out and throws key scenes at you left and right at perfect moments that its hard to beat nowadays.
It's actually quite easy to beat. I'd say FFIV crushes FFX underfoot even though it severely lacks extra content, with 2 actual hidden dungeons and 1 optional village(there is actually 1 more hidden dungeon, but that one is so short it's kinda like a sidequest instead). Even those annoying twins who used to bother people more than help the team, had a turnaround and immortalized their names on that world's history(literally). While in FFX most characters were forgettable from a storytelling PoV. ALthough they at least were acnowledge by NPCs as Yuna's guardians, the poor MC was a ghost from the beginning to end.
@Crimea river The villains... The 2 villain you mean(Yunalesca and Seymour), and no they weren't the best, although they were good characters. Final Fantasy X was a pretty good game, but it is a fact that the main characters were poorly developed compared to other key characters. The story forces Yuna into the spotline so much it gets annoying after a while, especially since we have some pretty charismatic characters in Lulu, Rikku, Auron and even Tidus. Of these 4 Tidus got the worst deal, he was literally nothing, treated like air, and only acted like Yuna's romantic interest. If not for his father being Sin, he wouldn't have any weight in the story. Notice how I left Wakka out? Wakka is subpar compared to any of the characters I cited. Kimahri had a pretty badass design but he was essentially Red XIII from final fantasy VII, a pretty useless character who was only ever used as a mascot character.
In this aspect Final Fantasy X was the same as VII, it had a very good lore, good villains, but underdeveloped main characters(aside from Auron and Yuna). Unlike VII however, the world itself fails to draw you in because of how you get introduced to things from Tidus PoV.
Tidus has a very peculiar PoV compared to the rest, at times prejudiced, but other times he see's the truth behind things(mostly because he was raised in a totally different enviroment). Some people disliked him because they thought he was immature, but frankly, he's usually true most of the times. People in spira are usually fanatic thwards the Yevon church. He usually seen that and got fed up with this sometimes, and he is right, we see later that the Temple's are the main enemies out there, the ones behind every little misfortune that happened during the centuries. The excessive fanatism, and the way how most NPCs are blind to anyone else but Yuna and Auron most of the time, it keeps people's from fully investing themselves into Spira. For all it's problems and assumed problems, XIII didn't have the same problem, most people just Ignored the world because they didn't want to get into it, and not a failure on the storytelling point of view.
After all Datalogs are not a problem, lot's of games have them and many of them are considered to be great games, but FF fans simply didn't want them in XIII. And so they use it as an excuse to create problems for the game that certainly don't exist.
It's not really a matter of opinion, as good as they were they weren't actually as deep as other villains. Although as villains I'd say they definitely rank higher than Sephiroth. BOth had pretty good backstories and they were also deeply tied to what would happen later on, however they lacked the power and the motivations of earlier villains. Best main villains are definitely the ones from 1 to 6. Now if we're talking about contribution and character(not necessarily as villains), these two are definitely rank very high up.
As far as opinions go I really like FF XII villains, they didn't have this apocalyptic aura over them, like other villains, they were more similar to Yunalesca and Seymour, and they did have greater power than both. And for all the plans they made, they were by far the least evil villains in the FF series so far. Yeah they managed to beat Kefka in this aspect
I didn't say he wasn't deep, I said they weren't as deep as older villains. If you think Seymour is deeper than Kefka was then we're going to have a probem here.
Like I said, you can prefer Seymour and Yunalesca as your favorites, and that would be your opinion. But you cannot say they are actually the best from a logical point of view, cause they aren't. If you played IV before you'll know that there is one charater in there who cannot be disputed when it comes from being both a villain and a victim, and Kefka is literally the most comple villain in the final fantasy games, which doesn't make him the best of or the worst, but definitely deeper than Lady Yunalesca and Seymour. Seymour was a problem even as a child, and he had everything to grow and become a better villain, one that deserved the final boss spot, but he had one fatal flaw, he was a teensy weensy bit of an arrogant creep, and for all his power he was still not strong enough yet. It doesn't help that Sin is the lamest boss in any final fantasy game. The Jecht part was ok, but Yevon was freeking tasteless. But Since Jecht was Sin, Seymour could never get the power up that would've made him a real threat.
The reason why I don't consider Seymout to be a better villain than Yunalesca, was that for everything creepy about him, he never gave the impression that he was someone you could never beat, or that there was a possibility for your team to fail.
Yunalesca however, was a better character overral and it was because we knew she couldn't be stronger than Sin, while Seymour gave last boss vibes, but because of Sin we knew there was no way for him to be last boss. Yunalesca, was supposed to be a powerful villain, that was in contact with the truth about the whole situation, we knew she wasn't the strongest, we knew it was possible to beat her, bet she still surprised us anyway, not only with her reveals she's got to be the enemy that is closest to Sin in power levels. She wasn't a bad person, but she lived for so long and watched her home die, only for her to survive but to have no place in the new world. She grew twisted, cooperate with the people she hated the most, and raised her beloved's soul in order for him to become an enemy that could potentialy erase the whole world.
She just couldn't give a damn anymore, living her life to create sacrifices in order to perpetuate the destruction she's been causing. And she wasn't even the final boss. not did she seem like a final boss.
She is indeed one of the best villains in the FF games, just not the best.
Yevon has no personality anymore and it's Yunalesca who manages the Sin business
You've brought up a lot of good points, some I didn't even think about. I loved both Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XIII. One thing I really liked about the linearity of XIII is that it fit the plot. X's plot allowed for them to take their time. Yes, bringing the Calm would be better sooner than later, however they could go at their own pace. XIII however, they were all fugitives. Why would a bunch of wanted criminals stop by a casino and have some fun? They wouldn't stop and talk to townsfolk because they don't want to be recognized. But once they all get to Pulse, where they are no longer being persued, the game opens up. It makes sense to the narrative.
Yes. A lot of people don’t realize that the linearity of their time on Cocoon is symbolism for the Fal’Cie control over not just the main characters but mankind as well. It makes perfect sense. That’s why it was so refreshing for us to finally reach Pulse after moving on rails for so long. And once you get back to Cocoon you’re back riding them again, why? Because it’s what the Fal’Cie want you to do. Hell Bartandelus even gives you the means to do so. It serves a purpose but when it extends to things like the leveling system it becomes downright painful.
The thing is, it doesnt matter if its symbolism or not. Its a game and games are supposed to be fun. If you had to stay still for 200 hours ingame because it symbolises you being in jail, would the symbolism justify the horror? If they couldnt work with it thy shouldnt have mae it that way. The opening of the game takes way too long. I was like when can i do something else that mash x and pres the analog up?
@Woman, Yeah i agree. Especially the thing that it expects you to be interested and invest in it. That is something you need to deserve as a game, not expect. Like you said: its asks to much and without deserving it.
Also many characters had to flee in other games. Heck VI, VIII, IX and VII had it too. Especially vii. The others just had some parts. But VII had Shinra behind them.But no, in XIII everyone was against you, thats no fun. It works for a small period, but not the entire game.
Daniel Kowalewski True
I think its the love story between Tidus and Yuna that is the real focus in ffX. This love story steadily evolved and became strong. Oh....and that ending scene. Well it is unforgettable even 16 years later.
It always bugged me when I hear people complain games being ‘too linear’ as if in and of itself is always a negative aspect. You’ve done a great job in showcasing how a linear game could be done either exceptionally well or poorly.
As a 13 fan, I agree entirely with this, but I always loved this game more than any other (even 7) because I just felt like I understood the story, characters, etc. But, that’s probably mostly because I actually read the datalog...
I never played 13, or any Final Fantasy really, but I have no idea how you managed to even just finish it once, unless this video is full of crap, the game sounds like a way too long and unsatisfying chore, but at least someone's having fun I guess.
@@ginogatash4030 The game is really long, and sometimes it really felt like a chore, but once you get the hang of it, you really do have fun.
@@Blue-lb4fj he did mention that at the 20 hours mark it actually starts and becomes more enjoyable, but 20 hours is kinda too long to get the game going, even FF7 remake which is pretty much only the first act of the original story stretched to infinity has better pacing somehow (tho it's still too much there as well IMO).
you are a masochist
@@dognose8518 sure
In X you can revisit areas.
In XIII they limit how far you can level up according to the story.
Also I liked XIII better when it was called Xenosaga; a game ironically with more freedom than XIII
You can revisit old areas in FFXIII's Gran Pulse also.
When you beat 13 you can go back to areas.
Josh Bennett you don’t have to beat the game to go back
r3dGilgamesh I don't remember getting the option to go back in 13 until after beating the game. Now 13-2 on the other hand you could go back to any place at anytime because of the whole time travel thing.
Josh Bennett it gave you the option to fight the final boss or do gran pulse shit.
I'm surprised you didn't also mention the ability to backtrack. I think it makes a huge difference especially as things change with the story moving on. People excuse XIII for not allowing that because they were on the run. However, that applies to FFX as well. They just changed the npcs and invironments slightly and it made the whole world feel more real and less like a hallway.
This.
I didn't even mind that much when they recycled ALL OF SPIRA for Final Fantasy X-2, as they changed enough to make it feel like time had passed and things about the world had changed.
I don't think it was perfect, and FFX-2 is light-years away from being as good as FFX, but that at least didn't bug me.
Being able to backtrack makes a huge difference. In FF13, if you leave an area prior to Gran Pulse, you will never see that area again. On the other hand, in FF10, even when you are about to arrive in Zanarkand, it is actually possible to turn around and walk all the way back to Besaid. Gets a bit easier with the airship after Zanarkand, but still possible.
burk314 Exactly, and the npc reactions are different at different points of the game. Which just makes it feel so much more alive and real. In XIII the places and people you see feel like nothing but backgrounds to the hallway you're playing in. Imo it has a huge impact when the plot involves making us care about saving the world: to actually make it feel like a world with people who have reactions to the state of things.
And its not like they actually did that for the story. They did it so that you couldn't just grind and level, forcing you to fight every battle the way the devs intended you to fight it, so even the combat became linear as help, since you couldn't really deviate from formula.
This goes back to my other statement on the video, that they kept flashing cool stuff in front of you, then wouldn't let you actually play with it. If the game is set that you have to have Soldier, Medic, and Ravaged, then that's it. Nothing else will work, no matter how you spent your points. In X, you could switch out characters mid-combat, teach them any skill in the game, and so your party lineup was customized to your own play style.
They were so anti-grind in FF13 (at least prior to Gran Pulse) that they literally capped your crystarium progress until you hit story milestones. One of the worst parts of that in my opinion is that you don't unlock the entire crystarium until after you defeat the final boss. I'm not a huge fan of post-game content.
I'd say that the terms in FF13 can quite easily be *inferred*. I remember my first time playing through it and not being confused at all; I just inferred that the Fal'cie are demigod-like beings, based on the way the characters spoke of them; with fear and (albeit reluctant) reverence. The L'cie, I inferred as being affiliated with the Fal'cie in some way, since they both end with the suffix "cie", although of course it wasn't confirmed for me until Chapter 2 or 3. The word Cie'th seemed to take after the word "wraith" and actually, the game pretty clearly spells out what they are in Chapter 2, when you first encounter them.
Tl;dr, FF13 tends to tell its story between the lines, so you have to infer a lot as you play.
It might also be that I'm coming from an Asian perspective on gods/divinity in general, where we have different and sometimes esoteric names for the different tiers of gods and goddesses that make up chinese/indian/japanese pantheons. Having "weird/vague" terms for divine entities isn't an unfamiliar idea for us
I also had absolutely no issues understanding anything in the game 🤷🏼♀️ I enjoyed both X & XIII, and I don't really see any reason to compare those or any FF games I've played. They are all extremely different, completely separate games to me.. Comparing them seems a bit silly. I once read a deep, scathing comparison of VII, VIII, & X... I just don't get it... Adored all immensely and truly don't understand the need for nitpicking.
XIII infers and respects your intelligence to read between the lines, both emotionally and in terms of world-building. Lightning and Hope using each other as replacements for their lost loved ones and subconsciously leaning on each other as surrogate family, Sazh more or less doing the same with Vanille with the added lovely complexity of an older man not understanding he's lecturing a faaaaaar older being than he ever will be, Snow's gradual, slow cracking outter shell of over-compensating self-confidence which mascarades his visible yet understated denial, which completely blows out of the water all cliched anime protagonist bullshit characters like Zidane ever brought up with their immediate one-moment-this-next-moment-that personality shifts that are totally unrealistic.
This is deep emotional stuff; fantastic character building and the fact that all of the main roster more or less handles and deals with their most pressing emotional issues by the end gives them life. These are things that most Final Fantasy fans expect the game to spell out for them, with huge diatribes and monologues all the time, either because they've becomed accustomed to it or because they're generally far too stupid to enjoy a narrative any more intelligent than the plot of any generic shounen anime. Final Fantasy fans ask for more human-like and deep emotional characters but then they'll spend a 20 minute video shitting on Hope for reacting realistically like a teen who just watched his own mother crushed from a several meter high fall, followed by having to live on the street with strangers while being pursued by the government. How they don't immediately understand why Hope is a bumbling emotional mess just goes to show how utterly unprepared they are for any remotely complex character-driven narrative.
Keep in mind: Lightning is the first protagonist in the entire franchise who wholeheartedly chose to hug someone else to comfort them. Not because they're a potential love interest, but because she is worried about them, and needs comfort herself. Yet all everyone seems to want to remember about her is she punched Snow.
FFXIII had a lot of problems gameplay-wise but it's story is probably the most mature and emotionally realistic of the entire franchise. It just sucks that the fanbase of said franchise just isn't up to snuff.
@@mamayareborn yes! A thousand times YES. THANK YOU!
Man just hearing that FFX music.... guess I gotta play it... again...
Ending theme the best.
X is linear but for some reason it didn’t bother me in X, I couldn’t tell you why, it was paced so well and you add your characters as you go along rather than XIII where all your characters split up until quite near the end of the game
ForzaTerra89 Linear is NOT bad. It’s how the games approach it. FFX, The Last of Us, Uncharted, God of War,... are all very linear and they are the best games around.
Most linear games, include the ones I mentioned above, did a very good job at giving you an illusion that you are not playing a linear game. You can run around open places and look for hidden treasures/collectibles/upgrade chests. FF XIII literally forces you to run through hallways of a map and gives 0 reasons to look for anything except rushing from A to B. They just don’t even care about giving that illusion of non-linearity.
Alien yeah, I don’t think linearity in itself I bad but XIII certainly wasn’t a favourite
It's because battles are fun in FFX and boring in FFXIII. "Linearity" isn't a problem if the journey itself is fun. FFX still retained enough of turn-based combat to be a good RPG. At it's core, FF13 (and 15) are more like movies that you have to mash buttons to watch.
If you pay attention, FFX is a recap all the way up til the Zanarkand ruins. The game starts at that campsite with, "Listen to my story...."
You’re forgetting a VERY IMPORTANT FACT. And that is....MUSIC! The music in ffx was AMAZING at building the right atmosphere whether it be admiring the wonder of spira...sympathizing with the characters and yunas role as a summoner....celebrating victories against the Luca Goers as the underdog. The storytelling of ffx was done so well at evoking emotions that made the game so much more enjoyable. I’m a pretty hardcore ff fan and i found I had a hard time trying to like ffxiii. It just didn’t come natural like all the other ffs offered unfortunately. Great video.
Exactly. X has one of the best soundtracks out of any Final Fantasy and the music is always placed perfectly.
To anyone who plays the remaster, go for the PS4 version of the remaster and choose the ORIGINAL Soundtrack, not the re-arranged one.:
I agree, the music in FFX is amazing, BUT imo FFXIII's biggest strength is the music. The main theme of FFXIII is absolutely incredible.
Not to mention that "Dust to Dust" is such an incredible track that it makes me really wish that 13's story telling was stronger. I feel that there needed to be a bit more build up to Oerba considering how important it is to Fang & Vanille but you kind of just suddenly get there. I also wished they showed it while it was still a thriving town to help really drive home that ghost town aspect.
XIII's music was a positive. And it was composed by the same guy who composed most of the work in X.
Final Fantasy X has so many songs I can listen ti over and over...I will NEVER get sick of Besiad, or Auron's Theme.
I feel like most of XIII's decisions were made based on backlash to XII; the Paradigm system is an extremely stripped down, minimized version of the Gambits, the linear level design was a response to the really meandering open fields of Ivalice, and the story being hidden away in datalogs feels like a response to the dry political exposition of XII's plot.
Personally, I loved XII, largely because the plot was so political and the levelling/party structure was so unique and different, but a lot of people I've talked to seemed to just not enjoy it and felt it was confusing/overwhelming, so when they made XIII, it feels like they were trying to strip down and streamline the design of the game, but went overboard and ended up giving you an emaciated husk of what a JRPG is supposed to look like.
Luigi Anderson I have zodiac waiting for me. I couldn’t get into 12 in my teens because the MMO style combat kinda turned me off of the whole thing back then. Looking forward to giving it another try when I clear up some of my other games. That said, Vaan and Panelo still suck.
Well, sorta. The game wasn't hated on, but it didn't really make a splash. I can only speculate on what Squeenix's internal discussions were like, but it feels like they were well aware of FF's slow decline in popularity ever since its explosion on the previous console. Most people who I know who got into XII loved it, but a lot of people just glossed over it. I believe I heard somewhere that the lukewarm reception to XII is also the reason Squeenix hasn't set any more games in Ivalice, as they thought people just didn't like the setting. Perhaps 'backlash' was a bit too strong of a word, but it feels to me like they saw that XII wasn't really doing too hot, not nearly as hot as X had been, and so they assumed that the systems they'd implemented were too complex and clunky so they tried to streamline them down for XIII, and ended up stripping the game of almost all actual player engagement in the process.
I played the whole FF12 without using gambits ahahahaha
Seriously I don't know to use gambits so I just manually input the commands old jrpg style.
I agree; I think XII was a great game; I was referring to how the market responded to XII (as opposed to X, which was a much larger commercial success, I'm pretty sure), and how Squeenix tried to 'correct' for what their fans didn't like in XII. XIII seemed, to me at least, like it was trying to 'fix' a lot of the things that Squeenix assumed customers had responded poorly to from XII, which ended up making XIII a massively stripped-down, barebones experience because they were trying to fix aspects of the game that weren't actually broken.
But a lot of people like 12... Its on top 5 in many peoples lists... It's actually my favorite... Lots of side stuff, big complex world with good lore which ties into side stuff, lots of hidden stuff, the airships are by far the best airship designs ever, a good story that wasnt convoluted and easy to follow, a rogue god wants to put the fate of man back into their hands... and we are actually fighting against it which means the story even has nuance. I liked the gambit system but I know thats a personal preference I guess...and finally it had good characters and a couple good twists...
What made FFX so good was that yes, the game was linear, but the entire game's story was designed around that with the pilgrimage and all. This wasn't a game for you to wander around and do small things. There were small things for you to do, but they were basically on the path. It was about seeing diverse places, wondering what beautiful area you were going to be exposed to next, what kind of monsters, hazards you were going to face. The game did such an amazing job with those hazards and effects, like the lightning in that one stormy area.
In FFXIII, you weren't drawn on that single path. You were yanked around like you were on a chain. The game screamed for explanation such as the theme park. I'll never forget reading about it in the game and being so excited. "Is this FFXIII Gold Saucer? Do I finally get to wander around a bit?" No. It was just another instance of the game yanking me in another direction. Boring, overly gigantic and uninspired locations made the high encounter rate seem like torture.
I just wanted to play to get to the next area, only to find that it was the same thing with different graphics. Because it was an FF game, I would try to push through. Then, when it finally does throw you out in the open, suddenly it goes from this super linear path to this wide open area. I was given no indication of where to go or what to do to advance the story, getting 1-hit by monsters and such.
I finally got what I wanted, but the entire single path experience drained so much that I had no patience to figure out the rest of the game or look at online walkthroughs. So I quit and never turned back.
FFX isn't good though. It's the same crap as FFXIII 😅
You'd have a point if the game didn't encourage you to go off and play Blitzball for hours. Or if Yuna didn't have a wedding ceremony in the middle of her big pilgramage.
@@rominabonanno it is
@@rominabonanno yes but arguably worse.
Another problem with the crystarium in XIII is that it seems to be ant me. I'm a grinder. I LIKE Becoming an uber badass early into the game. Yet it level caps you based on what section of the story you are in. You literally can't be max level until like chapter 10+ IIRC. to those that don't like grinding or don't care either way, its whatever. But to me, it was a definite negative. In my opinion, If i want to spend 200 hours in the map and 1 hit the first boss, thats my choice.
in my opinion if you are going to hard cap me, don't be direct about it. do it the way some other, notably western, games do it and don't have the enemies respawn. don't want me being too high level by a certain point? don't freaking allow me to fight unlimited enemies. simple as that. don't have the level system itself do it. I don't want to FEEL restricted, even if i actually am. I think you should always give the player the illusion of agency even if their is none.
Also about the FFX's Sphere Grid is the ability to recreate the Ssheres. You can fill the empty nods to make your characters stronger but you can also delete the slots already on the sphere to either replace the ones that have low stats upgrades to stronger ones or just delete it to weaker your characters for testing maybe? or challenges although I guess starting a New Game would make more sense.
I'm pretty sure this is basically one of the fundamentals of avoiding bad game design.
Knowing the shortcomings of your game, and then not allowing the player to easily observe those shortcomings.
FFX does this, FFXIII does not.
@Wolfwood2057 The problem here, is that there are not that many shortcomings in FFXIII.
What is there is many things most people consider to be shortcomings. Many of the problems cited by most people I usually see, I don't consider to be problems at all. Like the whole database thing or the Crystarium. The linearity in the Chrystarium is not a problem it's just a feature that it's not to everyone's taste. Having a customizable skill tree is not a rule, it's a possible feature. You don't have to cater to people who want to "make their own path" all the time if you don't want to. It's not detrimental to character progression or storytelling, it's not detrimental to any of the game's system.
Bloody then you don't like games that give you choice.
You see the problem here? It's not that I don't like games that give me choice, is that there are already far too many games that give me choice. Not all games need to be open world, or "Make your own adventure". Final Fantasy was always about telling one specific story, the only change made to each iteration was the formula used to tell it's story, which usually expanded to the gme's system. People nowadays expect all games to follow the same formula, adding all the new things they are getting used to. When something doesn't really present that, they consider it to be a mistake. But it's not a mistake, rather you guys have been far too spoiled by games.
I love both games honestly. Yeah, I get attacked every time I say I enjoyed FFXIII lol but I will admit, I agree with EVERYTHING you said about FFXIII, but for some odd reason, I can work around these things. As someone who likes FFXIII, I can honestly see why people didn't like it. But I still love both X & XIII. You deserve WAY MORE VIEWS AND SUBS MAN! This video was great! :D
Thanks man! That means a ton to hear! Personally I'm conflicted on 13...I do enjoy it to a certain extent and if I hadn't lost my first playthrough (made it to Gran Pulse back then) to a faulty hard drive and forced myself to replay the whole thing years ago, I probably would've looked more fondly on 13 but the issues with it's story presentation and monotony are just too much to ignore for me.
You're welcome! and yeah I agree! The game really needed more development time!
Sounds Kinda lame to say but honestly the beautiful landscapes distracted me from a lot of the monotony in the game.
you gotta try 13 2 it's great
Youre allowed to enjoy what you want and agree what you want. The only thing you want to avoid is saying "All u ppl that dont like FF13 are haters and bias. U all dont understand. FFx was simplistic and an older game blah blah blah." Dont stir up the hate.... state the facts! And enjoy your own opinion!
*E N E M I E S O F T H E S T A T E*
Another thing I like about the sphere grid is that, if you want, you can just follow the linear character path if you don't feel like investing a lot of time in the Sphere Grid.
I liked your comparison between X and XIII's main cast and side characters. You also said "the story in XIII makes more sense if you're already familiar with the world of cocoon". I actually found both of these issues from XIII to be just as present in XV. The side characters don't flesh out the world much at all, and the entire plot seemed like it was written for the developers -- the people who already knew everything about the game and could write an ultimania about it -- rather than the consumers. It's sad that all they learned from XIII was that they needed to pull back on the linearity.
Tom W XV is a different can of worms entirely where key events just aren't shown to you (Jared). I love XV but the story telling is inexcusable.
Yeah, as a gameplay experience I actually had fun with XV. I can't say the same for XIII as a whole.
Tom W XIII felt better as a story, lore, presentation, battle mechanics, ost. The only issue with 13 was removing backtracking, side quest till chapter 11 and town/Npc exploration. 15 was garbage it was poorly designed and not even a full game.
Indeed.this game took a second playthrough for me to understand what happenes. Cause I was already aware of the world and what it meant to the characters. Instead of giving you text logs, the game should have been focused on world building before turning you into cie'th and then move onward. Not leave that task to text logs which I had patience to read.. but not everyone shares that patience
Well-Dressed Ginger I don't think you remember 13's cutscenes very well especially the CGI ones. Half of them were tense moments of action. XV actually had the dull cutscenes like writing to Luna, talking to eris etc.
The problem with XIII is that it's a final fantasy game. The unfortunate truth is ff games will always be compared to previous games. I tried to play XIII, but couldn't get past a few hours because it didn't feel like a ff game. A year later I went back and convinced myself to not think of it as a ff game. I ended up thoroughly enjoying it, and spent dozens of hours getting all the items and the best weapons.
Seems like the same reason why there were/are many comments about hating Resident Evil 5 and 6. Those are bad Resident Evils, but good action thriller games.
And people need to remember that critics adored XIII when it came out.
13 is still difficult to enjoy. Final fantasy sets the standard of rpgs. So not seeing it as an ff is like not seeing it at the standard ot tries to achieve. If 13 wasnt advertised so heavily, then perhaps.
Problem is, I'm not even a big FF fan. I enjoy it okay but I'm no veteran. I'd never beaten an FF game before then. So I didn't really come in with any expectations based on other FF games. And it's still the most boring RPG game I've played. And I liked what I played of X-2...
OroCrimson like I said. Ff sets the standard. You played RPGs and each game sets the standard for the following. Or at least it used to.
Final Fantasy X has a point to every area, both in narrative and in game play. You always know what you're doing and where you are by the time the introduction is over, and each stop along the way informs the setting, your next destination, and the characters. Even new mechanics and wrinkles in the combat system continue to be added until the mid-late point of the game.
You move through these areas with reasonable speed, no one location ever outstaying its welcome, but all making at least a tiny impression. Tiny little hidden nooks and crannies encourage exploration even in the tight corridors of your path, and several distractions from the weight of the main characters' duties and trials dot the landscape in the form of mini games- the largest of them being Blitzball, which literally serves as one of the few distractions the natives of Spira possess from Sin and their terrible existences in-universe.
You're on a pilgrimage for the majority of the story, so your path being a line makes sense. It opens up at the end when the characters break from the path set for them that had been leading into the vicious cycle at the core of the setting. The leveling system is similarly linear (less so with the Expert Grid), but also presents many opportunities to break from the linearity through the use of keys, teleports, etc. By roughly the same time that the game's world opens up, you'll reach the end of each character's natural path, leaving you with nowhere to go but to break away from that path if you hadn't. These moments exist to perfectly coincide with the characters deciding their own stories.
The linearity in Final Fantasy X has a thematic point, and is accounted for in the game's designs.
Final Fantasy XIII very much wants to recapture what people loved about the games before it. Its chaotic opening sequence with the player thrown into the action is reminiscent of Final Fantasy VII, and Lightning of Cloud at the beginning of the game, while the structure of the levels is VERY similar to X's in that it's heavily linear and only opens up near its end.
But it does so without understanding how its predecessors did it and why. In VII, you have only one point of view to follow, and the game organically introduces you to the jargon of the setting- Mako Reactor, SOLDIER, AVALANCHE. The terms used in ways that explain their nature or role in the setting, aside from the fact that several are near self-explanatory (SOLDIER obviously being military-related but different from a regular soldier, AVALANCHE evoking disaster and destruction, Mako 'Reactor' some energy source). Despite characters never explicitly sitting each other down to provide a dictionary explanation, the player catches on well enough to follow the action.
XIII's opening jumps about constantly between multiple view points, fails to define its terms or even use terms that evoke ideas that can be used to grasp the situation. What's a l'cie? What's a fal'cie? Aside from Cocoon's enemies, I mean? It takes its sweet time telling you, and on many terms and locations all throughout the game, you have to dig into a dictionary the game shoved into the menu to learn anything, if there's anything to learn at all.
X does an excellent job of pacing its plot and character development. XIII does not. It follows the same idea of breaking the game up into defined chunks, but many times the characters and plot don't advance in these chunks; they merely repeat the same information and character beats over and over. It feels like they had no idea of how they wanted these stories to be presented, made a few dozen possible takes, and then ran out of time and funding and just shoved them all in out of a hope nobody would notice.
The areas are visually different, but have no real game play variation to set them apart or mechanics to introduce. No side quests, no mini games, nothing for the stretch. Character customization of meaningful capacity is non-existent. Even when the world DOES 'open up', there's not much to do aside from what you've already been doing, and the combat system really does not have the depth to keep it fresh after 20 hours.
The linearity does not serve the plot, in fact it damages it. Your characters are fugitives on the run, and they don't have much in the way of plans about how to survive or escape. Each new area is pretty much just whatever was nearby in their aimless running, so why is it all so linear? There's no reason to be in a given spot for most of the game. The locations themselves aren't even explained or fleshed out much beyond whatever is in the datalog. Even the main antagonist's motives are shoved into datalogs. XIII does what it does purely because a previous game in the series did them, or because the game is trying to subvert things previous games did for the sake of subversion.
Tools exist for specific purposes, and the same goes for narrative tools. Just like you don't hammer a nail into wood purely for the sake of hammering a nail into wood, you don't use plot structures and beats purely because someone else had some success with what they were using it for.
One word: Datalogs.
Datalogs are fine, but dont put the story in there.
Why not? How is that not preferable to forcing the story onto the player through cutscenes when they may not care? A player cannot be assumed to want to watch cutscenes when they play a video game, and therefor cutscenes are not good design or storytelling in a medium defined by the interactivity and the audience's agency.
I suspected FF 13 would suck when I was reading an interview where they basically said they were looking at what worked in FF 7 and just finding ways to incorporate it into 13. They didn't ask WHY certain things worked, which is why you have characters and settings that don't really seem to make sense or fit with the rest of it (I.E Lightning is basically Cloud, they start on a train because that's how 7 started, there's a casino because 7 but it doesn't really do anything)
Well im pretty happy that Lightning don't act like Cloud.
That explains the massive similarities. I definitely recognized them -- but I didn't know why they were there.
They act somewhat similar.
She acts more like Squall, really.
Nevertheless, there are a _lot_ of similarities between VII and XIII. The devs were even told to "make her something of a female Cloud" when designing Lightning.
I liked the first XIII game, but there is no denying the _obvious_ references to Final Fantasy VII. And no -- VII isn't even my favorite title. I just recognized the similarities.
its ALL about the characters, in FFX we fell in love with the characters immediately. In FFXIII, after hours we just couldn't care about them
Aaron Anglea I played all of 13 and I still don't give a shit of them.
X also had one of the most badass characters in the franchise auron.
yes...agreed with you...Auron is kick ass
They're like soulless robots.
It most certainly gets an even worse reputation because they punished us for not caring about the characters by giving us 2 sequels.
I don't think anyone was happy to have lightning's brooding forced down their throats for 2 games, or everyone's in-universe obsession with her sister in the first 2. (Edit: all 3, forgot that snow wouldn't shut the fuck up in lightning returns or that the actual premise of that game was for lightning to get her sister back, not sure how I managed to forget that.)
Didn't mind Noel so much in 13-2 though, can't really put my finger on why since I pretty much despise everyone else in that entire series.
I found FF15 to be quite enjoyable. The characters resonated with me. The game was very linear, but the intent was that these 6 people were L’Cie and time was their enemy. Their fate is sealed, thus the linearity until post-game.
The chapters were impeccable too, better than ff15, composition-wise. the backstory of each character is carefully built and you see how the fate of the 6 individuals intertwined. The flow is flawless, and that’s what got me to keep playing until the end past all the boring battles, because I was rooting for these characters.
*This* *game* *is* *story* *and* *detailed* *enriched,* *rather* *than* *gameplay.* I took the time to read all the datalogs lol, and I do think they could have done a better job integrating some of the history. I read a datalog about Paddra Tsu Yeul and I was like “who tf is this and why should I care?” But then after playing FF13-2 I realized who she was and was able to connect it back to the first game.
Enough can be said able the games mechanics though in all honesty. The story in FF13 is very well nurtured, especially if you get to play the trilogy in order through FF13-Lighting Returns, the game hits on some touching topics, relatable themes and arguably real-world issues.
The way the series envelopes your emotions in not just simple tactics like character deaths, sacrifices, tragedies, and loss. It instead carries you through of what it means to be alive, to keep fighting through despair, how not to give up when the going gets hard, but also how hard it is to stay alive, and how to live with your demons.
In conclusion lol, FF13 tells a story that players who stuck around to listen will never forget. However the way it was presented and delivered is very debatable.
I agree. I liked 13's characters and their promo material (growing up I was a huge fan of 9 but didn't ever really resonate as deeply with X). When it came time to play 13 I soaked up everything like a sponge and read religiously for the main game, but didn't really fall in love with the sequels as much.
When it came to story delivery, the way it was told was a "the adults in game know what's going on, therefore we won't spoon feed the info in dialogue". Which I feel added to the realism (Something they did again for 15 that I appreciated.) Do they go too hard on needing to read the backstory? Absolutely. Hope and Vanille were prime candidates for characters that could have been slightly out of the loop and NEED explanation like Tidus did in X or for example Vivi or Eiko in 9.
FFX is nowhere near as linear as FFXIII. There's only one open area in XIII and once you leave you can't get back. In X every area is open and you can return to anywhere you've been. There's also several optional areas and many hidden places amongst the areas. I really don't think the two can be compared in terms of linearity. If we want to compare everything else, well XIII looks prettier. I'm trying to be unbiased, but I really think X is better in every other way.
Youre being biased as hell, you just don't know it.
Yes, you do walk along paths. The difference is that there is more to do along those paths.
Tell me, was there anything substantial waiting along a branch from the main path in XIII? At least in X you could get Better weapons, optional summons, some rather strong bosses, etc. And unlike XIII, you could actually go back a revisit those areas again to find anything you may have missed.
Linear but less boring than Sphere Grid.
If you're European or have PS4 version, you're blocked by Dark Eons and can not come back everywhere.
If ffx is a linear road, ffxiii is a train on tracks.
Great video. Another thing that I've always struggled with when it comes to XIII's story are the gobbledygook terminology, compared with X's terminology which very much has a grounding in the real world.
X uses terms like Sin, Calm, Fayth, Aeon, which are all derived from descriptions (mostly with religious connotations, running with the themes of the game) from our own world, so we can immediately relate to it and utilize our own understanding of the real world terms within the context of the world of Spira. Even Spira is explained as being derived from spiral. It's a brilliant example of cleverly used terminology in a fantasy setting.
XIII on the other hand, whilst it does use Cocoon, Pulse, Purge etc, the story is very much centred around the terms Fal'Cie and L'Cie. I've tried looking up whether these are in fact derived from a preexisting terms but have found nothing, so I can only assume they are completely made up (or at least something so vague that hardly anyone will know - if anyone does though I'd be very interested to find out!). It's why the characters have to keep reinforcing what a Fal'Cie and L'Cie are, purely to try to get these terms to make some form of sense to the audience.
Basically, while XIII did have a lot of potential, it never did itself any favours. Had they used terms we as the audience could immediately relate to, they could have filled all the time wasted on characters repeating that Pulse L'Cie are "enemies of Cocoon" with more story content and world building. Sadly, a lot of this is sidelined and just shoved into the datalogue.
The difference is very simple. FFX had an easy hook from the beginning. Right after the intro/tutorial sequence, Tidus is given one simple quest - follow Yuna as she gathers her summons to fight the boss, or as players of the time see it - seek out some next gen Shiva boobies. The player willingly follows along and the game gets the chance to try and make the players care.
FF13 failed at the beginning with that. Basically, a god tells you "you gon die les you do wut I say, bruh!" As a reasonable player, I ask "what should I do?" And the game's response is "...go find out." BAM, the game just lost me.
akba666 At all times of 10, you knew very clearly what the next goal was. You knew exactly what you were headed to and why. In 13 not even the characters know what they're doing. The shitty writing literally becomes the villain of the game.
Seeing Brotherhood crossed with whatever kind of swiss army knife looking thing Lighting uses makes me think of how well they represent their games.
Brotherhood is straightforward with some flair, like the hilt, pommel, and random hook at the end. X is very easy to understand and get stuck into.
Lightning's gunblade is way overcomplicated, I don't know where it starts or where it ends. Kind of like how XIII's world building is described in the video.
FFX was the last ff game that I truly enjoyed and played many times but when it comes to the ff games after I’m not a big fan.
ffxii may have a word on you
Not even FFXIV?
@@elinfini To be fair, it takes quite a while to get to Heavensward :D
@@Sines314 I agree but FFX was also the beginning of the end. It benefited from having the ps1 trilogy's DNA at it's core but the things the game brought to the table were very inessential. When you play X you can actually feel that everything that made FF special was beginning to fade away. Final Fantasy X was the end of an era.
Sadly FFX was very much the last good final fantasy. They'll ruin the remake of 7 too.. It'll be another glorified hallway runner with no exploration or freedom.. I'm willing to bet they won't even give a world map or equivalent..SMH
I wonder if the pacing of XIII was hindered due to how the game wrote itself into a corner with a time limit of turning into a cie'th and constantly being hunted down in Cocoon.
I think they wrote themselves into a corner by turning the Main Party into L'Cie by the end of Chapter 2 instead of doing it a 3rd of the way into the game. The gravity of being branded a L'Cie doesn't really hit since (aside from Serah) you never really see any other normal L'cie beforehand so it's somewhat hard to even grasp what a L'Cie actually is. Frankly, I think the game shouldn't have started with the en media res at the Hanging Edge, it should have been rewritten to start in Bodhum instead so it could have better established Cocoon as an actual place.
Totally with you. While the flashbacks to Bodhum are a good cinematic choice, if the days leading up to Hanging Edge were used to introduce characters and some of their motives, it would've helped (except maybe for Hope and Vanille). That way there'd be less break ups and more room to do other things like use Nabaat better or probably even introduce Cid sooner.
They wrote themselves into a corner by putting the characters into a lose/lose situation. Fail to complete your goal? Turn into a monster. Complete your goal? Turn into a crystal. Keep the monster bit of it, but give the characters an out by achieving their goal - just make that goal one that they don't want to accomplish for whatever reason. That leaves you with a moral quandary. Fail to complete your goal and you basically die. Complete your goal, but you hurt the lives of many other people. Characters have to struggle with taking the selfish or selfless route, and in the end they can still "go against fate" by either choosing not to go after the goal (and thus being turned into monsters), completing the goal via some loophole to where it's not actually a bad thing, or choosing a third route and fighting against the people that placed this curse upon them. Instantly a much more satisfying story and set up for the plot, which I think has potential.
I honestly think they were idiots for making the military knowing where you are at all times for literally no reason. They could have had the result of the vision be the end of the first fucking act of the game. Also the time limit means they had even more reason to just get to the point.
They could have had the thing that gave them their focus actually tell them, after all IT COULD SPEAK IF IT WANTED and why wouldn't it? It is not going to accomplish anything if it doesn't tell its own servants what they should be doing.
Also the "you turn into a crystal" thing is not even that big a problem, especially as there is all likelihood that the crystal is just suspended animation until the thing needs you again.
And all this is assuming the whole curse is irreversible, where all the power transferred from the god to the main cast should eventually become more than the curse itself.
Basically they didn't write themselves into a corner, they always had an out - they never actually used it though.
Warbot I think they missed a nice world-building opportunity in making the Cavalry absent for most of the game. A more active rebel group placed throughout the game's levels could've given some much needed exposition via dialogue as well as the much-missed "pit stops" you'd find in other Final Fantasy games.
FF10 has its problems, but theres no denying its a fantastic RPG. The difference between FF10 and FF13 is Hinorobu Sakaguchi. Without him Sqaure fucked it all up. Square fucked FF13 up by spending too much money and time on the Fabula Nova Crystalis project. They couldn't justify all that time and money on one game, so they split FF13's mythology across 5 games. Thats why the story was so thin, all we had with FF13's was nonsense like: "Its our Focus, Serah said so".
Every few cutscenes the same dialogue is repeated over and over and over. The story never moves forward like FF10; the cutscenes are there to placate the players until the end of the game; when we finished the game, we were told that FF13-2 would continue FF13. So there was no intention on Squares part to tell a complete story in one game, the story was designed to span 5 games, hence why they coulnd't explain the story in FF13, they could only develop the characters, because the characters were disposable. The story however was not.
Sakagushi wasn't involve with FFX the last FF he was directly involve was IX.
If you check the credits and all the interviews regarding FF10, Sakaguchi was directly involved in the game. Hence why he is the execuitive producer of FF10. He also had other roles in development regarding the story and the gameplay. This guy was directly involved in FF10, thats why it ended up being a complete game.
That is stupid, if you want to do a game you shouldn't be splitting it into parts, you should just make one good game and continue if it goes well.
Well thats what happens when you spend too much money, time and resources on one game engine for one game which take years and years to devlop. That entire investment is lost with that game. If they spilt the narrative of that game into different games they can release more games and make more money, justifying their enornmous expenditure.
It is not about the "fabula nova crystal is". Is about bad script & execution. Fabula is like Ivalice, just a lore in certain FF universe. Ff type-0 has better story, gameplay & character development based on the same lore of FFXIII just different team
It's also worth noting that, unlike FFX which doles out it's story organically through the gameplay, the areas you play through in Final Fantasy 13 are almost always narratively interchangeable. Ask yourself at any point while playing FFX "what am I doing here" and you'll usually have an answer that's relevant to either the plot or to the characters. Ask yourself the same question while playing FF13 and more often than not the answer is usually just "to get from point A to point B".
Which then leads to a problem where most of the story and characterization in the game is expository in nature, rather than, like, an actual series of events where one event leads organically to the next. You run through a pointless area, and then characters just stop and talk about things that have no real relevance to where they are or what they're doing. It's distracting how often it happens.
KashelGladio i strongly disagree. I have played FF13 4 times and every scene and place has a purpose
WOMANpukumaru
I am. As one of the few fans of the game I can try to explain what I enjoy about it.
I sincerely love the story and it has taken me years to really get it, which I can't say is true of other works of art.
The first time I played it I liked all the characters but wondered why Lightning was made so "cold". I didn't really get what the point of Vanille was or why Snow was disliked so much by the other characters(save for Hope)
It wasn't until my ps3 got corrupted that I was forced to play it a second time from the beggining( I got to Pulse) so I had to start over.
My second play through opened my eyes to how more complex all the characters were. I got Sazh and Snow more thoroughly and I began to appreciate them more. It was here that I began to understand the lore which is vital to even getting why characters act like they do. In my second play through I googled a translation of a short novel that happens before the game and that made me understand why Lightning doesn't like snow that much. (Hint he's irresponsible)
I then went to community college, got super busy and didn't come back to the game for a few years. Did my third play through and I began enjoying the game for its mechanics more.
By this time I loved the lore and all the characters but still was disappointed by Lightning's coldness.
"Why does she have to be such a bitch to Hope? You're powerful Lightning take the little bastard under your wing. Why would you abandon him in the wilderness? Wtf is wrong with you?"
Then finally I got the trilogy again for PC. My goal this time was to have it for modding purposes (I am studying 3d animation in college)
I read everything this time. All the datalogs and sincerely paid full attention.
It wasn't until my fourth fucking playthrough that I got why Lightning was the hero.
Snow was the archetypal hero that you would see in many other games and cliche movies. He represents the hero many of us think about when we imagine one. However his naiveness and inability to see the larger picture ends up hurting others and this is addressed head on.
If it was another bland story Snow would have just saved the day and I wouldn't have cared three shits for the game. He would have found the stupid crystals and that would habe been that. *cough cough*
But no actions have consequences in FF13. Hope's mom doesn't come back.
Sazh is more responsible and could have been the hero if it was not for the fact that he gave up a long time ago. His plan when he boarded the train was just to die after he sees his son one more time. The fact that he was gonna shoot Serah shows you he really sees little point in fighting back. An armchair pragmatist. He's like the opposite of Snow.
Lightning is the one who pushed through though.
She was the one that boarded the train and inspired the others to fight back.
She was the one who defeated Anima and stopped other people from getting cursed.
She was the one who kept going after her sister got crystallized to protect the group . Remember they were getting hunted by a massive army. She knew she wasn't gonna be allowed time to mourn. A she was given was a quick mental "goodbye " to her sister.
(Compared the "hero" snow who stayed behind and got caught. )
She was the one who took the fight to the sanctum (the others just wanted to run away)
And my favorite
She didn't want to take Hope with her. She knew he was too young and could get killed.
When sazh and Vanille decided to not go with her to save coccoon, she tells Hope he is better off going with them if he wants to be safe(which she was right)
She really was the most selfless one of the bunch and she was right for wanting to leave Hope behind.
She was willing to go alone by herself to help out a society that won't remember her or know of her selfless action.
I absolutely love Lightning now and think she is the best part of the series. She's my favorite Final Fantasy character now.
WOMANpukumaru
lol chill this is a massive thread on Final Fantasy X vs Final Fantasy XIII.
Literally this whole comment section is about people discussing the games.
Who spit in your Cheerios?
WOMANpukumaru
Lol passive aggressive much?
Whatever man you have a good day
The best part of this video is how you pronounce Tidus' name as "TIDE-US"
It instantly made the whole video credible at that point.
Wandering flame is such a nice song
FFX is my favorite and the story is excellent. I really enjoyed FFXIII but the story was defintely harder to follow
I was pissed with FF13's bizarre plot choices. Because the characters never explained where they are, where are they going and where they fell into, I honestly thought the frozen lake was a new world that when I went to ffwiki to understand what the hell Coccon is supposed to be I was spoiled what happened to it in the ending.
It was that bad.
Don't need to understand about Cocoon right away. However, the teleportation between random places in FFXIII was stupid, (like why and how did I go to Lake Bresha?) but it didn't stop me from loving the game. The rest made sense. After crashing into Vile Peaks, Sazh and Vanille tried to run away from their problems, so they go to Sunleth Waterscape, and then Nautilus. Hope tried to go back to his home with Lightning in Palumpolum to tell his dad about his mom's death.
This actually; so many times in the early chapters the narrative had me assuming we'd left Cocoon, only to find, whelp, we're still on Cocoon. I got mislead by the lake too.
That was always something I loved about X's story, was how Tidus and the player discovered new information and learned about the world together. That's one of the biggest differences between X and XIII for me: XIII feels like it builds a world around the story it wants to tell, and so it forces all these confusing things about its world to try and make that story itself, and you never feel like you know enough even. X's world is well-defined and interwoven with the story in a meaningful way that makes both the main plot and the world of Spira absolutely masterful in execution. It boils down to this: X was built so that every piece would fit together perfectly and create something complete and seamless by the end of it, between the main plot, the world, and even its characters. XIII feels like they focused on the basic structure of the story and MAYBE the characters (some of whom feel weak in terms of personality and development tbh) and then slapped on a world to try and fit around the awkward shape that the story was, and it just didn't quite fit in all the most important places.
You pronounced his name TIE-DUS. I like you. (i understand why his pronounced teedus but it it sounds dumb.) Also, great video by the way!
Teedus maybe won't sound dumb if you're Greek or like Greek pronounciation.
The most damming problem of 13 was the melodramatic drivel everyone made speeches at each other. Wasn't a natural character interaction in the first 10 hours. Didn't help that the game auto played itself like a rail shooter where your only interaction was choosing which rail and mindlessly pressing x.
I restarted XIII recently and everything Snow did made sense to me until he stayed behind to mine out Serah from the crystal. You'd probably be melodramatic too if your girl got turned into a rock.
I could say the exact same about FFX. There wasn't realistic character interaction in that entire game. Hell, if the voice acting is any indication, I'd think there weren't any character interactions in FFX at all.
Also, unlike FFX and most other FF games, pressing X doesn't get you anywhere in FFXIII. It's got easily one of the most complex and dynamic battle systems in the series, requiring you to actively and constantly manage your team. It's just in a slightly different way than normal, so ignorant people like you continue to spew this false narrative bullshit.
FFX has Auron, that's enough lol. He's such a badass wandering spirit.
This video is amazing. Something you forgot to mention about the FFX's Sphere Grid is the ability to recreate the Spheres. You can fill the empty nods to make your characters stronger but you can also delete the slots already on the sphere to either replace the ones that have low stats upgrades to stronger ones or just delete it to weaker your characters for testing maybe? or challenges although I guess starting a New Game would make more sense.
Years ago, I made a college research paper about the same topic and covered most of what was presented here haha (For those wondering, the teacher liked it, but I don't remember what was the topic and how I chose it)
Enemis of Cocoon.
Edit: I like how easily X let you make overpowered characters. Not easily as in "no effort," but as in "We won't stop you." My Yuna started out the best healer, but by the end of the game she had all of Lulu's best offensive magic and then some. Powerful magic, powerful summons, and powerful healing spells made her the cornerstone of all three of my full playthroughs.
I played XIII for around 20 hours, most of which was spent grinding because the game is poorly balanced on top of being poorly designed.
All character are the same at the end of FFX, the only difference is their Overdrive (and Summon for Yuna). In FFXIII, the character are all different at the end (for example, Snow is the best healer after Hope). Poorly balanced you said ? Which one ?
When I played FFXIII, near the 70% of the story, I was miserable, I just wanted it to end, everything was horrible, the combat system, the characters, the story, the leveling system. I've never played it again, I even sold the game because I was sure I would never play it again. Meanwhile, I've bought and played the other ones multiple times, even the ones that where hated a little bit more by the community because they still had something fun about them, like FFX-2 but FFXIII is just the worst game I ever bought and played.
They spend too much time talking about how they don't know what their focus is, and just ranting about l'cie and fal'cie. I do appreciate how the characters grow to bond with each other and work together, but you have to slog through a lot to get there.
Legit, exactly my feelings. I tried to like it, cause I bought it the week it was released at full price, and once I got 2 thirds the way through, and it dawned on me that the journalist reviews were bs and the game wasn't getting any better, I began just playing out of obligation because, hell, I had already put in 25 hours.
The key difference between Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XIII is that it's basically a case of style over substance. FFX is more focused on actually giving the player an interesting experience as they explore the world of Spira, by actually having you interact with the world it's set in. FFXIII, on the other hand, has an overly pretentious story about fighting destiny while it seemingly cares more about being an anime in video game form rather than, you know, _a video game_, and that's the problem, FFXIII focuses far more on style while FFX is more about substance.
Definitely understand where you're coming from. I really would have loved to thoroughly gone through cocoon as fugitives, but there just wasn't a lot there with you being dragged out of places as soon as you get there.
Nautilus for me was a big let down because it was all about spectacle and you couldn't really enjoy it without going on a chocobo chick hunt and fighting more enemies.
You didn't get the video. I recently finished FFXIII and I don't see what you are talking about. Mainly because the story once you get the hang of it it's interesting and character development is deep. Gets to a point where you actually care about the characters and their fate. Also the visuals and soundtrack are amazing.
I think a large part of the issue with 13 is that there's no sense of world continuity.
Like, in X, most cutscenes take place in the area you're in, and it's up to the player to move the party to a new area.
But in 13, everytime you enter a new area, it's through a cutscene. Beyond that, you don't just travel to the next area in the cutscene, you travel to some far away area from where you just were everytime.
This serves to make it feel like you're just walking to and from the next cutscenes. Compared to X, where it feels like you're exploring the world.
I'm surprised you didn't also compare the weapon systems. X lets you actually customize your weapons with different skills. XIII calls it weapon customization but is yet again another linear progression system. One that actively punishes experimentation through hidden mechanics.
Nah 13 calls it weapon upgrades, not customization.
@Cyberdemon Mike very true very true
X also punishes you with hours upon hours of grinding to get the materials back
XIII has Snow, who requires to be *PUNCHED* in the face for our universe to continue existing.
Ironically, visual and archetype-wise Snow and Tidus have a lot in common- arrogant blond jock type who has little experience in the real world until now. And yes, people got annoyed with Tidus at certain early parts too.
The difference between them? Tidus matured. He grew out of it. Seeing all the suffering in Spira and Auron's lessons made him realize what's really important.
+WhiteFangofWhoa
Hey, Tidus can have his moments. But the most important argument remains: he's not Snow.
Haha. While I've already outlined my argument, I admittedly haven't played FFXIII as much, so what do you consider the big differing factor between them besides name and context? Why do we hate one and like the other as a protagonist?
Trim
LMAOOO xD
Tidus is more multi dimensional - Snow is just an arrogant musclehead who happens to date a hot chick like every fucking jock in high school
A friend pointed out to me that in FFX, if you have Auron go through his Spheregrid pathway, and then have him go through Tidus and Wakka's, gaining their respective agility and accuracy specialities, you effectivly turn him into Old Man Guts from Berserk.
Each character in FFX has a different role in battle:
Tidus: a Nimble fighter to fight Nimble enemies
Yuna: Our healer and, later in game, our High Mage as well
Lulu: Our elemental mage (Her Celestial Weapon is too hard to get, so you may switch to Yuna late game)
Auron: Has piercing weapons to Armored enemies and is a Debuffer (breaks)
Wakka: Ranged weapons for flying weapons and is also a Debuffer (ailments)
Rikku: Alchemist, Thief and Machinist (dismantle machines) all in one.
Kihmari is our Joker, jack of all trades. Is both Blue and Red mage.
But FF13...
Everyone can be everything
But also limits you in how many chars you have in the chapter, which elements that character can cast and turn and turning a battle strategy more than just select a spell to cast into enemies weakness.
Also they turned the "main character death" mechanic into a plague. Persona does this better!!
I'm a new gamer of final fantasy. My first one was 10, it's still my favorite. I mean I played every final fantasy and they are two games that I like before final fantasy X (V and VI). X, was amazing and I can come back to it and still enjoys it. X-2 is very good imo. XII is huge and there is so many things to discover, great too. And XIII, the story is entertaining and characters are great for me, some scenes are so well made, you can deny that. In the end of the day, it's juste a matter of taste
Thank you so much for this video. I'm in the minority in that I actually liked FFXIII, but I also recognize that it is incredibly (INCREDIBLY) flawed, especially compared to earlier FF games. I would often compare it to FFX, but I could never articulate it in the way that you did in this 15-minute video. Thank you for putting a voice to this comparison.
FFX have a better storytelling, even though you know what to expect in the next chapter. (you know that you will defeat sin since the beginning of the game, you know that Tidus fall in love with Yuna since he first met her, etc)
FF XIII? You didn't even understand "why Lightning do this, Why Snow do that, why Hope hate this, why Vanille love that" for the first half of the game.
You didn't understand what is fal cie, what is L'cie, differences between Cocoon Fal Cie and Pulse Fal Cie (seriously i though Fal Cie like some kind of evil organization at the beginning of the game)
Based on how it was described - I expected pulse to be literally hell. Instead, it's just the Australian outback.
13 trilogy was my first game into final fantasy, as a newcomer i was able to understand the game and bare,y looked at the datalog although i did only for parts like falcie history etc. imo its not really that complicated for me. yes ffx has done better in parts of storytelling and progression with lore n all i agree. especially with game leveling design and pacing. ff13 throws u ina loop quite a bit but i always got the jist of it hahah. each game is gonna be different of course, diff gameplay, camera angles, etc. learning to appreciate the flaws in 13 made me love it more. again i agree with everything said in this but it does sound 13 gets shitted on too much?? compared and the degraded instead of giving some bitsa props for what it did right. but i dont wanna sound like a weirdo and be like peeps gotta do that i juist wish it was given more appreciation even if its bad at least for the music and design (not linearity). i love both games and see both flaws in each and appreciate for what they both are and do.
You’ve managed to put into words what the rest of us feel but can’t quite explain. Good job!
FF13 was missing Sakaguchi.
Even though Spirits Within bombed hard, he should have never left the company.
Dude was way too hard on himself.
The company was on its way to bankruptcy, and he was the engine that brought the company out of the dark ages and skyrocketed around FF7.
How involved was he in 10 though? He was just the executive producer IIRC.
Even worse about the "hidden" chests in FF13--sometimes they do hide them. Sometimes they expect you not to turn around in the starting area of your hallway. Sometimes when you cross from one path to another, the hallway splits between where they want you to go next, and where you've already been, and they expect you not to take the one that goes against the flow of the rest of the hallway, because that's not where the progression is. They hide chests behind the hallway. Drives me crazy.
Final Fantasy13's Environment just feels dead, compared to FF10.
In Lulu's voice: 'My thoughts exactly'
EHHHH certain areas sure
I think you were the only person who said why FFX and FFXIII was different despite both being linear. FFX tells you everything about its world, with breaks in between. FFXIII tells you about its world, but out of order, and all of the info on different characters and places are in the datalog, which gets updated as you go through the story. To know the full story of FFXIII, you would either already know the characters, or constantly check the datalog, which again updates as you go through the story.
For me, XIII has a brilliant story, bogged heavily down by poor writing and directing. There are so many little things that could have fixed this. But I'll focus on one, better villains. These villains, Yaag, Jihl, and Bart are all terrible. Jihl does nothing, Bart just laughs and gets his ass kicked every time you fight him, and Yaag goes woefully underdeveloped. Leaving me scratching my head every time you encounter them.
What could have fixed them? For one, make Jihl and Yaag the primary antagonists for the majority of the game, with more interactions with the heroes. Make Jihl someone who wants to capture l'Cie for scientific reasons and curiosity. While making Yaag someone who wants to murder the heroes, bent on revenge against the l'Cie for one of them killing his family. Finally, make Bart someone who approaches the heroes as a "friend", someone who "helps" them along their journey, subtly leading them to his own goals. But he never reveals himself as the real villain until near the end, with the added twist that everyone has been duped and played right into his hands.
This alone would have elevated the story tremendously, I feel. Also, one other thing that could have helped, remove the Ceith from the story. They make utterly no sense at all. I mean, if the fal'Cie wants something done, then turning your agents into mindless monsters won't do it. But here's a simple fix, have the l'Cie begin to lose their memories the longer they take. All of them, except for their focus. This would actually make sense, with the added bonus of some potentially very emotional scenes. Like what if Snow forgot Serah, or Hope forgot his mother but the other's didn't?
Thar's probably one of the Best Ideas! Just imagine a scene where Sahz starts forgetting about his own son. That would be Heartbreaking!
Dark Mountain Productions I agree wholeheartedly.
I just thought of something else for added conflict and depth to the villains. Make Yaag Lightning's mentor and lover, and make Jihl Sazh's wife. This would add so much weight to when you inevitably have to fight both, and would make them more than just your run of the mil villains.
Dark Mountain Productions I never would've thought of that. 👍
QUEENDOM
Story, plot and lore are three different things. Story is what it's about, plot is the events within the story, and lore is the mythology of the story. So for me, the story about a group of cursed people fighting the gods that cursed them is a great story. The plot is an absolute mess, however, with hardly any development of the characters, world, or mythology.
It just thrusts you into it without establishing anything, and expects you to just read up on it in the datalog. Which is a terrible way to tell your story. I mean, one of the first spoken lines in the game is, "I'm not a l'Cie." That's probably one of the worst lines you could possibly write near the beginning of any story.
But yes, I do agree that the lore is probably one of the game's strongest aspects. It just would have been nice if it was actually told to us within the story, and not shoved into the datalog.