Hello everyone,

As you may have noticed, there is a bit of FFXIII bashing lately, even on respectable websites like this one (see the GotY 2010). After rewarding it with high marks (8 to 9 out of 10 everywhere I looked), many "journalists" seem to have suddenly changed their mind calling it "disappointing", and that's when they have the decency to stay polite : some French so-called professionals from went trolling in their GotY and in every news involving FFXIII-2 as if FFXIII was hardly worth playing.

So if Final Fantasy XIII is the most disappointing RPG of 2010 (and most disappointing game for some) and Mass Effect 2 is the best RPG of 2010 (and best game for many), how do you explain the above figure? I know full well that sales doesn't equal quality, but FFXIII got so much hate ever since its Japanese release that it's safe to say people had been warned about the underlying problems and possible disappointing aspects (linearity, slow-paced, etc.).

My guess is that FFXIII hasn't disappointed that many people, but that haters were much louder than the silent majority who enjoyed the game peacefully. I mean if FFXIII was that bad I'm not sure 6 million people would have bought it, again because those kind of players stay informed and read reviews. And all time sales further increased 32% from the 10th week after release and now. Therefore either those millions of players are really gullible, stupid and have horrible tastes OR FFXIII is severely underrated and/or Mass Effect 2 is heavily overrated.

Of course this topic is absolutely not about saying which of FFXIII and ME2 is better. I have not played ME2 so I couldn't possibly pretend compare the two. I personally think it a mistake to put them in the same category since they are very different. No I'm just a passionate FF fan who barely wants to defend his beloved series at times it's so unfairly attacked.

Well.. I had to buy it to find out it was disappointing.. how else would I know it was disappointing?

It sold on name value alone. We won't realize the damage FFXIII did to the series until the next Final Fantasy flops.

I thought it already did. Sort of.

THis. I know i bought it for the name, but that was week 1, when it was still getting 8 & 9s. IMHO, i think reviewers were chicken shit and didnt want to tell it like it was. For fear of fan backlash. I would give this game a 7, Max. Thats just me. 

As for sales, one was multiplat day 1 and the other wasnt (i dont know what the PC sales for ME2 are) and FF is a much bigger name than ME even in the west

I was talking about XIII-2 or Versus. But we can see the same principle at work here: XIV flopped because XI sucked. (Go ahead and ban me, twesterm!)

I bought FFXIII, and I was really disappointed. The game looked gorgeous, but everything else was just not in the FF league. Obviously FF has a huge following before it released. It is number 13. ME2 is by far the better game, but it doesn't have the history that the FF series has.

No no no... XIV sucked and flopped without any help of XI.. it reached a whole new level of flopping and sucking..

Do we know the number for digital distribution ? In the case of ME2, I had ME on PC with Steam, so I naturally bought it during a steam sale. There was a mess with the time exclusivity on 360, which could explain that the PS3 users waited to get it.

I agree with the idea that FFXIII sold for the brand. I still have to try it, but I'll get it second hand.

FF13 isnt a bad game but compared to previous games (FF10 and earlier) it wasnt great. Part of the reason for the many criticisms is that there was a huge amount of hype (maybe too much) built up over this game due to its long development time and the fact that it was the first FF to release on current gen. When the hype didnt match up to expectations, fans (and critics) went bananas.

As to why ME2 has sold less, remember that this was a timed exclusive on the xbox until the start of this year so most sales are only from the xbox - it would have done much better had it released on ps3 at launch.