Runa216 said:
No No No... 1 - Tidus was not JUST a whiny emo kid (he wasn't even that). He was a famous person growing up in the shadow of his more famous father. he had to deal with his father/son issues while also dealing with the realities of this new world and he actually changed thanks to the events of the game. There was multiple levels there. Hope literally was that whiny brat who misinterpreted something, was whiny and emo about it for most of the game, until the time came to act, he had to mature and realize it wasn'tworth it. that was the FULL EXTENT of the character, whereas Tidus was Freud's dream. 2 - Barret had LOADS of history with the other characters as well as the villains. he has REASONS for being the way he was, and you often see through to how tortured he REALLY is. With Sazh, you see him being silly and kooky, but you find out he's only tagging along becuase his son was taken. While I agree Barret may not be the deepest character, he's leagues deeper than Sazh. 3 - I won't even bother with all the subtle nuances about Cloud, his past, his identity issues, his rivalries and cold nature. Squall was a moody teenager who, through the events of the game, actually CHANGED. the people in your party, his rivals, and eventual loves actually changed him greatly. snow was just a generic wannabe hero who realizes that *gasp* bein a hero is hard! I honestly can't think of more to say about him. I could write a whole essay on Cloud or Squall. Vaan was admittedly boring as hell, though. Vaan was Aladdin in Star Wars Episode 1. I loved that game for its setting, story, combat, and explorative gameplay, not the characters. 4 - ... Not even gonna bother anymore. The point is that all Final Fantasy games had characters that had deep and wide development arcs, intricate backstory, and personal motives. While some were simple on the surface (Barrett, Vaan), they actually had depth and backstories. When I can sum up an entire character ark for Lighting or Sazh or Snow in a single paragraph, that's not deep. Hell, I just finished Final FantasyIV for the first time, and EVERY character had a disctinct reason to help you, there was a connecting theme, there were relationships and backstories to explore. Hell, even Tidus, a universally loathed character, had more depth than ALL of the characters in XIII combined. I could write an essay on any character from VI. while there's no denying I may just be biased becuase I LOATHED XIII, the fact is that I spent 45 hours of my life trying to like it. every step of the way I wanted to remind myself how AWESOME it was becuase I've been such a longtime fan of the series and I certainly didn't want to become 'that guy' who hates something irrationally. Much as I hoped and tried to force myself to like XIII, The characters were BORING as sin. There was nothing interesting or memorable about any of them, even the costume design was as generic as it gets. I wish I had a different opinion than this, I hate hating games, but there were no redeeming values in the game, especially not the characters. the world and the lore was supposedly really deep and I found it somewhat interesting, but I'm not reading an in-game history textbook to learn about it all. that's not a good game, that's not even a good book. Every previous FF game was able to make me care about the characters and get involved, there's no excuse why this one does not. they have some of the best writers and some of the best skilled people working in the gaming industry, this was a joke. |
Whilst I'm not going to 100% deny everything you've said, there are numerous exceptions I have to make:
1- How dare Hope show emotion over the loss of his mother! I'll admit, I liked him the least of all the characters largely due to how bratty and arrogant he was. But he having to cope with his mother's loss is no different from Tidus having to cope with hunting down and killing his father who emotionally abused him. His lunatic tirade towards Auron in the Luca stadium and his BSOD at Home upon finding out Yuna will die in the Final Summoning are essentially on the same wavelength as much of Hope's characterisation.
2- Except he didn't. Cloud and Tifa were the only characters he had a history with, and that was largely downplayed. Okay, so he leads AVALANCHE, but they become effectively obsolete after the Sector 7 disaster. And after the battle with Dyne at Corel Prison, his role in the story is virtually nonexistant seeing how the Shinra higher-ups he seeks revenge upon have long since been usurped by Sephiroth as the center of the story. The same could arguably be said of Red XIII, whose story significance pretty much completely vanishes after Cosmo Canyon. FF13 managed to do what only FF8 had done previously and ensure that all of its central playable cast had story significance right from start to finish. Sazh, by circumstance, like the rest of the cast, has to live with becoming an abomination reviled by the entire population of his home planet. There is personal layers to his backstory too as he dedicates himself to catching Nabaat and avenging his son, alongside the emotional leverage of finding out that the supposedly sweet and innocent girl he has been co-operating with for half the story inadvertadly caused his son's crystalisation. Hell, I found the scene at the Fiendlord's Keep with his attempted suicide to be one of the most powerful in any Final Fantasy game.
3- Snow had the goal of saving his fiancee, not to mention having to co-operate with her disapproving sister and facing up to the ramifications of his thoughtless and selfish actions, manifested in a vengeful boy out for his blood because they resulted in the death of his mother. Snow matures and develops considerably over the course of the game. I'll admit he isn't as complex as Cloud with his false memories, the whole Nibelheim incident, etc. but he still isn't a one-dimensional character in any way. Also, I'm curious as to what you liked about XII's story. It resembled a Final Fantasy game so little and was so unoriginal that they may as well have called it "Japanese Star Wars" The setting was dull and greyscale also. XII is by far my least favourite game in the entire series.
4- Yes, and so does this game. The character development has been cited as one of the game's strongest points. You obviously were too blinded by hate to recognise this. I struggle to see how Tidus could be regarded as having more development than any of them combined, seeing how for the first half of the game his entire personality boils down to "My father is a dick! I'M the star player of the Zanarkand Abes! I'm so awesome!" (Bear in mind FFX is my favourite FF also) Furthermore, much of XII's cast got a hell of a lot more development than Wakka and Lulu did at any point. The revelation of Wakka's brother is pretty much the only true plot importance they have beyond being guardians. At least with Rikku, we had the whole of Home and her family ties to Yuna, and with Kimahri we had the mystery of his horn, the Biran & Yenke rivalry, and Mount Gagazet.
Now, onto something else, the game has a beautifully aranged soundtrack, amazing graphics & environments and supberb voice acting. I didn't like every character, but I thought they were developed solidly, and Barthandelus was a far more memorable villain than the likes of Vayne or Ultimecia. Where the game lost points for me was the flawed battle system. The Paradigm system, Gestalt gauge, Stagger etc. were all good, but having to control one character with two AIs is just alien to me. And despite how illogical it is given how easily the other characters could revive them, the battle ends if the leader is KO'd. (though admittedly thanks to the absence of MP, averting this would make the game laughably easy) As for the linearity, well I'm astounded by the fact everyone is whining and hating on the game for this reason, especially seeing how FFX WAS JUST AS LINEAR AND NO ONE COMPLAINED! I didn't hate nor love it, I just thought it was acceptable- being able to backtrack further would admittedly have been nice. Towns are an acceptable omission seeing how the characters are all fugitives and, in story, this would make no sense.
So in short, I don't like this game as much as FF7, FF10, or debatably FF8, but it is a damn shade better than FF12, and dare I say it, FF9 (I don't hate that game, I just couldn't accept the ridiculous super-deformed artsyle and the lighter storyline by comparison to previous titles) It doesn't deserve the hate it gets by any means and for me is a strong 8/10.
