| 2000cc said: I think those articles just highlight the disconnect between eastern writing styles & the average western fantasy fans level of comprehension. 13-2's story is far more intensive than 99% of western fantasy tales (including many western fantasy novels) & while XIII-2's story is at a quite standard level of complexity & 'quirkiness' for an eastern tale, it attracts tags like 'convoluted' or 'unfathomable' ot 'too vague/subtle' in the western worlds perception (just like X, XII & XIII did also). The FF series storytelling is maturing. X, X-2 XIII and the XIII's are far more intensive story & lore wise than earlier FF's like VII (which is basically just a modified space marine (or any genetically enhanced super soldier) story & very western styled overall) VI's (I love VI by the way so not hating on the game at all, but the story is not at the same level of intracacy as modern FF's) or IX (basically a disney level of storytelling & again quite western styled). Sakaguchi, while a great developer, made games with stories aimed at a far less mature portion of the eastern gaming market (and consequently greater accessability to those not used to that style of tale worldwide) than the current FF writers are aiming for. This is obviously just my perception of what is happening but having lived in Japan and having (Japanese) friends over there, this is what I personally have seen. Closing thoughts, I'd recommend playing XIII-2 for yourself & see what you think. I Imported it from Japan AND bought the English language version & don't regret either purchase (though I am yet to begin the english version) |
I can't comment on XIII-2's story as I've not played it, probably won't, but I've played most the other you mention above. I think your perception on the stories is lost in the main characters and not the underlying story itself. In the games, all main characters start as the player does, a clean slate with little information known and as the story progresses the player and main character learns more about the world and the story within, the main characters don't need to know that information at the start as they've never had too. In VII, it's not about a soldier, it's about 3 parties, one trying to exploit the planet's resources for money, one trying to exploit the planet's resources for power and one party trying to stop both of them, character history behind this is to develop relationships and give more reason to the character's choices and goals.
In the case of XIII, we went into the game knowing little again but the main character knew lots. They started talking about the Purge, I didn't know what that was yet, they did and talked like I did know, they then mentioned Fal'Cie and expected me to know what that was. Then they mention Pulse, a Pulse l'Cie, cocoon, all i can think is 'what?'. These aspects need to be explained in the gameplay, not in datalogs, by this thinking Bugenhagen's speech in VII would have been reduced to a datalog in XIII.
Maybe the underlying aspects of XIII's story flurished as it got going, more developments were explained and the surprises the Fal'Cie did along the way. To me it felt like it tried to be more then it was though, because of my lack of understanding at the start, I lost interest in the story, the reasons why my group of rejects were fighting and just played the game. This is not good story telling.
Hmm, pie.
