A REVIEW OF FINAL FANTASY XIII (PART 1)

the myth of the franchise installment hated by fans at release and over time considered an "underrated gem" plagues the final fantasy franchise maybe more than any other in the videogame space. VIII, IX, XII, XIV and even XV have in the years since their release received general acclaim or revaluation whereas once they were either considered weird, uninteresting, or maybe even bad. i suppose the most obvious case of this would be XIII. the same thing happened to Sonic Unleashed, and Sonic Adventure, and is actually happening to Sonic '06.

the thing about XIII is that the amount of hate and contempt it got at release was way above what it deserved while nowadays the majority of the fanbase think it's actually a great game (or at least have softened up about it). i'm writing this with the presumption that you already know what was complained about (i write my reviews for the kind of nerd i am) so i won't waste time with that. instead, i'll have to explain why i'm cutting this review into two parts:

my playthrough currently has 36 hours, though granted, some of these are just stilted menus. i have played through chapters 1-11 and am currently at the Yaschas Massif area of gran pulse. you might have noticed that 36 hours is a lot of time, and yet that's the time that most JRPGs (this included) supposedly take to complete. well, i'm a slow player. that's why i have barely ever finished rpgs in the first place. even at 36 hours i'm nowhere close to finishing the game, and i get to chapter 11 and remember there's a bajillion side missions i have to complete because i won't allow myself to not do them and- actually, i'll get to that later. for now, this part 1 will be a fresh(ish) review of the first 10 chapters (and a bit of the 11th) and i will not comment on whatever takes place thereafter.

 

also, very LIGHT spoilers ahead if you care about that. 

- THE REVIEW -

when i first booted up XIII in 2024 i already knew what to expect. i knew i'd like the game, because i love linearity and i've always thought it looked like one of the most beautiful games ever, and i suppose i did enjoy it at the beggining.

 

the first thing that caught my attention was this game's version of ATB, a system i loathe and have complained about a lot in the past, but this iteration feels like what Hiroyuki Ito intended when he designed the system for Final Fantasy IV. while i'll always prefer the TTB system from FFX, i must admit that XIII's ATB is engaging and full of adrenaline. in harder battles, you do feel like you're fighting for your life (something i also say about Devil Survivor, for different reasons).

 

but when talking about XIII's combat, it's impossible not to mention Persona 3. in both games you control only one character while the rest of your party follows a general command such as "heal" or "debuff". in XIII, this is the "Paradigms" system. the 3 characters in your party can follow different roles (this games equivalent to Jobs) such as Medic (white mage) or ravager (Black Mage) and they'll automatically choose what skills inside that role they'll want to use during battle. however, in P3, this "trusting your allies" system is much more responsive according to my experiences. that can be attributed to P3's party members having less skills to choose from in a given moment, the AI being better, and its version of "paradigms" just being generally more useful. many times in XIII i wanted Sazh to cast Faith (magic up) after Haste but he would instead cast Enfire or something stupid that i didn't need, or wanted Vanille to heal some other party member but she'd instead heal the party leader, etc. a lot of people complain that Mitsuru is always using Marin Karin instead of Bufu, but that didn't happen to me, while I can easily see something like that happening in XIII. that's why I ended up with Sazh as the party leader.

 

oh yeah, the party. well, in my playthrough it took me 30 hours to get to the point of the game where you can actually shuffle the party around and choose the ones you want. i didn't really have a hard time with not being able to do that before, but i heavily missed being able to choose my own party (and switching the members on the fly like in X but i'm aware that's asking too much). it was also around that point that the crystarium, this game's equivalent to the Sphere Grid, expanded in a more meaningful way. out of the many similar things XIII has to X, i'd say this is the only thing it does better, although not by much. the crystarium is much more interesting than the sphere grid because of the roles, which up to that point were exclusive to certain characters - you couldn't let Snow be a buffer or Sazh be a healer, but now you can... if you have a ludicrous amount of Crystogen Points (< which forms an unfortunate acronym). anyway, now at 30 hours you can choose whatever 3 members you want to use the most and the party leader is the one you'll control during combat. i chose Lightning at first (because she was the strongest) but switched to Sazh for reasons i've explained already. i also had Vanille in but switched to Snow because i was in dire need of a sentinel (the tank role).

 

before going into the story, i have to talk about the pacing. yes, as tired as it is to say, the beggining of XIII is unbelievably slow and sometimes boring. some of the prettiest enviroments are here like the Gapra Whitewood or the Sunleth Waterscape (although i couldn't enjoy them because my personal computer was already grossly outdated ten years ago) but you spend so much time in them that it gets tired quickly. what doesn't help is that now monsters aren't random encounters, instead being in the overworld, the catch being that you just can't escape battles, so sometimes you have a 10 minute stretch of land with boss-worthy unescapable battles that you just have to tank through. it's not that the story doesn't pick up until way later, it's that the game feels like it hasn't started yet and when it does you're already at the second half and running to the end.

 

this is where i get to why i've cut this review, and my playthrough, in half. 30-ish hours into the game, WAY more than what i usually pour into playthroughs (specially in less than 6 months) i was already exhausted and waiting for it to get going in a faster way. i found out you can upgrade your weapons -- not just level them up, actually turn them into a better weapon, but for that you need ludicrous amounts of materials, and for that you need ludicrous amounts of money, or insane levels of grinding. i noticed regular encounters were getting harder, which is the point. you're encouraged to level up your weapons and upgrade them, the problem is that i at this point didn't have nearly enough money to buy materials and the amount of grinding you need is way too much. then i got to chapter 11.

 

chapter 11 is the people's favourite chapter. everyone who complained about the linearity would say "now this is where it gets good, because you have a giant field full of side missions you can complete and explore". the thing is, i actually prefer linearity. when the progression is at MY control, you bet your ass i'm going to fumble it and take way too long to do things, but that's not even the issue here. chapter 11 has a lot of map to cover, and SLOWLY. in other FF games this is the point where you'd get some airship to fly over the map and stop at whatever place you wanted to, or at least get some way of walking faster, like riding a Chocobo. you don't get that here (at least not where i am). the scale is too big for your walking speed. after a couple side missions (or, well, you can ignore them too) you're basically allowed to leave this area to go to chapter 12, but well, i don't want to do that. if i'm playing a game i want to experience everything it has to offer, just not necessarily 100% completion... also, one of the missions' reward is an accessory that i really need (gives you more drops). so, knowing i'll have to play through the rest of chapter 11, a bunch of side missions, and i still won't be close to finishing the game, for the first time i've decided to take a defined break from my playthrough (instead of forgetting to continue the game) and play some other stuff before finishing it.

 

i know i sound like i didn't enjoy XIII, but that's not true. the combat is fun, the aesthetics are great, the crystarium is engaging, etc. i really did have fun with this game, it's just that... sometimes, it feels less like fun and more like padding.

 

so, what's left to talk about is the story and its characters.

 

a certain videogame critic once said that no Final Fantasy after VII except for "maybe IX" has that much soul. while i heavily disagree when we're talking about VIII, X and XV, i think XIII's story - or rather, how it's executed - is actually the closest that sentiment gets to the truth. i'm not saying XIII is completely souless and lacks emotionality, but it lacks the genuineness and heart that games like VII and IX had. when i think of why FF stories work so well, it's not really the maximalist concepts or heavy themes, it's those nuanced, quiet moments where dialogue is the opposite of expository. you can sense their motivation in each scene without them having to tell you, even without facial animations, because the writing is that good.

 

i do like XIII's story, its world and how it progresses. it's about a band of flawed individuals who were tossed aside by society and wronged by higher forces, slowly deciding to come together for a bigger cause, and forming bonds along the way. Lightning slowly learns the truth about the organization she worked for, Snow's belief in his ideals is challenged, Hope has to understand that death is meaningless and no one is to blame for it, Sazh confronts the person responsible for his son's demise, Vanille has to forgive herself, and Fang is... well she's there. i like Lightning's relationship with Hope, acting as a sort of older sister figure. Sazh might be my favourite not just because of his actions but his voice acting is also easily the best one. Vanille is adorable and a comfortable presence, Snow and Fang are less compelling but still fun enough to have around.

they all have compelling arcs and aren't annoying or too emotionally immature, their realizations come through naturally, but the dialogue is too... poor, in comparison to other games. they outwardly talk about their moment to moment feelings, not leaving a lot of room for nuance. the closest thing to that is Vanille's guilt which you can feel (and piece its origin together through context) through her animations and dialogue, but other than that, it's all much closer to western AAA stories than the heavy writing of the old days.

 

despite my grievances, there's not a character i dislike and all of them have their gameplay advantages too. there's a reason i have Sazh in my team instead of Hope, he's just a much better buffer, and Snow is a raw strength powerhouse, but sometimes i might need some more magic or a better healer too. however, even though their reluctance to work together to trusting each other arc is more extreme and slow than Persona 3's, i think that game works that into gameplay much better. like i said before, trusting your allies in Persona 3 is much more in your face as a gameplay aspect, you have way less control over them than in FFXIII so slowly getting to seem them working better together is more satisfying. still, i think it's really fun to play.

 

 - THE POINT -

...will be in part 2! see you then, in god knows how long!

?/10