The Xbox Man said:
Just before I continue, I do count the development of characters as apart of the story. Now FFXIII's story itself is nowhere near as close to the depth of Planetscape Torment for example. In effect its a very simple story but that is one thing I did like. However I definetely do not believe that the story is poor. The concepts explored in the story range from the holocaust to the true nature of God and where god is (The concept of their god abandoning them is similar to theories some religious people believe in). Moments of brilliance shone through in the story for me & some themes are hinted at very subtly. The degradation & the fall of the people on pulse (explained through analects int he codex) again was very well done and really hinted athow civilizations crumble, I agree though it was "told" in the story well. I include the characters within the story and I can definetely they were done fantastcially throughout. The only character I have a problem with is azh, he was stereotyped to the point where I (being a African American) was literally feeling slightly insulted at times. I disagree with the assessment about Hope, sometimes the greatest thoughts can come from the youngest minds, the way he developed throughout the game felt very natural to me and didn't feel too rushed, unlike Fang's sudden change of mind in Chapter 10 & then her sudden change of mind literally after fighting her eidolon, now that seemed fake. With Hope the development felt pretty natural.
Ona final note about the story, I do feel the mythology & world created, the lore that exists within cocoon/pulse is one of the best in gaming (if not the story itself which wasn't told all that well).
I agree it should be considered a game first, however I went into the game with no preconcieved notions and I felt that "this is how the game is meant to be played". Because I truly believe this is one of the best battle systems in the genre the battles all felt like an event, not to mention the music in the battles was unlike anything I had personally heard in games (coming from a WRPG background). My other game of this generation is Fallout 3. Fallout 3 & FFXIII are my favorite games this generation, maybe I liked the change in pace the game had.
No towns being present in the game atleast to me made sense in terms of the story on cocoon, by chapter 7 they were pretty much known as criminals by their face as TV stations were airing their footage. Before chapter 7 apart from chapter 6 I don't think there was a chance to have a major town. On pulse theyc ould have had towns but that would change the entire dynamic of what happened there (Fal'cie go crazy & try to make everyone a L'cie, Humans are panicked and cause Civil War...eventually pulse Humans become extinct).
I slightly disagree with your final paragraph as many many people on this site who seem to be Final Fantasy fans have enjoyed the game a lot, seeing the Final Fantasy showdown thread & the official thread for the game.
But I can understand where your coming from & the game may seem dumbed down, I can definetely see what your problems with the game are. But I think what Square-Enix have done is necessary for the franchise to be able to survive because from what we have seen the fans of the series on the majority are satisfied and atleast think it was worth playing, at the same time most new people they are brining in love the experience. Its sales increasing week on week in the UK GFK sales charts suggests pretty good word of mouth too.
But thanks for clearing this up, I do udnerstand where disappointments may be coming from.
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Just a few more points on the bolded:
- I felt that having to go into the codex was a failure to tell the story properly. I understand why they did it as it keeps the pace of the game fast, but it also ruins immersion if I have to go to the codex to get background to the story or if I missed something first time round. That was actually why I miss the towns. They had that function but without ruining immersion (but I can understand the logic for removing them in terms of game tempo... I just think it's wrong :P).
- Fang probably is a better example of what I was describing. But, with Hope it felt quite bizzare having such a young character reciting these well thought out monologues. I can understand how he developed, but it was bizzare all the same. I actually felt that such wisdom would have worked better coming from one of the older more experienced members in the group, but unfortunately they sterotyped Sazh as you pointed out. I think it would be better if Hope had smaller monologues but with small revelations leading to the other characters filling in the gaps of Hope's youth and inexperience.
- I think every Final Fantasy game has a superb world and mythos. That's one of the major plus points about the series. If they wanted to, they could revisit a lot of the games from the past and create 2-3 new games from those worlds. In fact they did with VII and to a lesser extent X.
- Never said I didn't enjoy the game, just frustrated with some of the design choices. I'm glad I bought it, and I know a number of FF fans that love it (know a few that hate it too mind). I think its a divisive game for old school FF fans. I think what they did was good, the dissappointment is that it could have had more.
