Final Fantasy XIII - A Storm Gathers (And FF XIII & XIII-2 ship 9.6 million units)

[Runa216]

A203D said:

Runa216 said:
*awaits inevitable flames*

I'm actually putting together a lengthy article explaining each and every reason Final Fantasy XIII sucked...and not just "Baww, corridors", I'm talking actual developmental issues and gameplay features that the game had that kind of went against anything that was good in the series.

It'll be fun to see the rage.

A lot of people I feel are missing the point completely. You can throw a stone into a search engine and you'll find innumerable critiques on FF13. You can go on youtube and watch some people rant about their problems with the game.

Theres not much fan rage these days, because its become generally accepted that FF13 was mediocure, to put it midly!

I think the problems with the game are on a fundamental level. And I would really like to see an article explaining where those problems are coming from. I mean, were the developers justified in creatng 6 hours of cutscenes in the game, yet filling those cutscenes with a lot of over-dramatisation of the same plot points. For example 'Its our Focus, Serah said so'. Why are the real questions not answered in the game: like where Bartandulus comes from, why caused The War of Transgression.

I think if you create a game with 6 hours of cutscenes, you are not justified in not explaining the story. This is a problem with the games design on a fundamental level:

Were the directors justified coming into FF13 with the intention of making spin-offs and sequels? Pessonally I think if your creating a 10 hour action game then maybe you are justified in leaving some things open for further sequels. But is it justified for a 100 hour long RPG to have sequels? The main story is what 50-60 hour long, do you need a sequel to tell more story.

If you look at FF7, 9, 6. Did those games need sequels to tell the entire story? No they didnt. Therefore the question is why have the developers gone into this game with the mindset of not telling a complete story. The other things are of course the compitency of writing. The dialogue. Why is the dialogue in some cases not writen for a mature auidence? Why the do characters continuously talk incessently? Where the developers justified using Lost the tv show and Modern Warfare 2 as inspirations for the game? I dont think so.

I agree any article about FF13 might generate fan rage. But I think there needs to be more concern over where the source of these problems came from. Because the probelms havent gone away. The writing in FF13-2 is apparently not much better, (I dont know I havent played it). And apparently The 3rd Birthday is Toriyama's worst offence against intelligent writing (among others: Front Mission 3). Therefore are these problems confined to FF13 alone? Or is the problem much deeper than that.

that's basically the gist of it.  you really need to get down to the basics, explaining WHY various aspects of the game failed.  It's not enough to say "The story sucked and was told poorly", but explain WHY it didn't work and what about it was told poorly.  it's not enough to complain that the battle system was totally flawed, you have to explain why it didn't work, where it failed, and how to fix it to make it better.  the battle system, the characters, the RPG elements, the story, all of these things need to be examined...and to be fair XIII-2 was better gameplay wise, but just as bad if not worse story-wise.  

and of all the rants I've read and watched, I have two very strong points that I don't think anyone else has noticed, or at least I haven't read or watched anything that points it out.  some of my points are retreads, but in an all-inclusive list of flaws, I might as well add them.