we will decide our own destiny.
it is definitely a mess, but a lovable mess to *me*.
FFXIII was my first FF game that i finished, and i kinda had to torture myself to finish it in order to hop on FFXIII-2 (been more fond of it..) but it definitely wasnt a waste.
you'll see tons of people complaining about the pc port, that its a very pretty much a corridor simulator, bad/boring combat, or even the story being incomprehensible, or too much of a "from point A to point B" game (no kidding, its a linear game....)
we are thrown into a world where a set of demigods give people a "focus", a mission they need to fulfill, in order to achieve eternal rest, and if they fail, they will transform into a monster.
the game repeats a refrain that there is no such thing as purpose, and no grand design, only free choice. goes as far as to mock the concept of miracles. "Miracles are things we make for ourselves", " Wishes can come true, but not if you wait for miracles".
the game throws at you like a hundred terms in the span of the first hour, so theres really no kidding if the story looks complicated or incomprehensible at the beginning. fear not, there is a datalog which keeps all explanations and intels about things. the story is pretty straight-forward and the datalog just sums it up, adds minor details that could have been missed throughout the cutscenes, it is in no way crucial to read the datalog, i just feel like the game doesnt do justice to its story without the logs. i personally read every single file and thing i could.
many people lament the loss of towns, NPCs, puzzles, side quests and overall the presence of gameplay elements beyond watching a movie and combat. luckily for me, linear games are no issue, so i quite enjoyed myself. FFXIII ignores every step forward the series had taken in terms of gameplay, world exploration, and RPG mechanics, but in my opinion this game does not deserve all the hate it gets. i very much like experimental things, theres nothing wrong with that.
most people just dont have the patience and worst of all follow the opinions of others like their own without even trying the game for themselves.
the game surely isnt perfect, but thats exactly why its so beautiful and worth the experience for me.
again luckily for me, i didnt have any kind of problems in regards of the port. didnt use any mods, ran on quite high graphics, never had any crashes or really bad lags, so the whole "can run only with mods" is just BS by people that are mad that their game is locked on 60 fps, which really isnt a big deal.
as far as the combat goes, i actually really loved it. first time playing with an ATB bar.
it does feel rough and unintuitive at first, or still even post-early game, but it actually does have a lot of depth if you pay attention and learn its mechanics, and there is no way with clearing the game by simply selecting the auto feature, so you kinda have no choice but to learn. selecting the auto feature might even be a grave mistake at times.
that said, it was only enjoyable with bigger, faster paced unpredictable bosses.
battles go on far longer than they should, because the staggering part is actually really important, simply dealing a lot of damage is not enough. the stagger mechanic stretches every fight into the same slow pattern, and it sure would have gotten even more boring over time, as i am not much of a big turn-based combat fan (i just happen to like games that happen to be turn-based combat..), but the paradigm shift made it a hundred times better. actually fun, wasnt boring at all.
at the start of the game, every time the story changes your party composition are reset, so it leaves you with almost no feeling of control over the fights, often not being able to even change the leader. but post-game handles this a little better —i really had to brainstorm for good battle teams, but i still loved creating all sorts of unique teams as every battle can call for unique setups. except having only six paradigm sets was a trouble late-game, as i kept up figuring new and new battle teams, and it was even worse when there wasnt any configuration save option, so i had to write them down often.
the result of the combat is a pretty addictive loop where exploring the world is about understanding the combat system and its nuances. this is also highlighted by how balanced the game is throughout. the game doesnt really allow for the player to actually be overpowered for the most part. once i grinded for hours thinking id have it easier later and i still struggled BIG time.
the bad part of this is that if you arent really into the combat, there is basically nothing else in the game for you to do since every bit of progression comes from fighting itself..
theres no denying that the game is extraordinarily beautiful, im actually surprised its very cheap.
sadly theres not enough time, or better yet, reason, to fully explore each area as the game pushes the player from point A to point B. it could be seen as a waste, reducing them to just “pretty areas” without any depth to what goes on there.
the world does open up more in Gran Pulse, which was breathtaking. for once, youre able to roam freely and interact with the world around you while youre exploring, something that has been missing the entire game. and this specific part of the game even offers doing some side quests. but once you get out of Gran Pulse, the world becomes narrow and closed again. not to mention the quests have pretty much zero depth to them. technically, most of the game is a sprint from cutscene to cutscene through narrow corridors, with larger areas only opening up near the end, where there is almost nothing to actually explore. sometimes its agreeable that the game seemed way too linear, for all its philosophical flaws, it was fundamentally dull. the idea of a floating sphere-world above a wild planet is a genuinely original concept. but the game tells you almost nothing about it. some information can be found in the datalog, but because of the absence of NPCs, quests, exploration in general, the world ends up feeling dead and artificial, lifeless.
characters themselves may be unlikable at first, but I think that makes them more human in a way.
(((my faves were Snow and Hope💜💜)))
i liked how most of them were actually allowed to be normal everyday people, then were put in an absurd situation, which made them feel more relatable.
though it saddens me that there is very little actual interaction between them, i hope interaction, amongst other things, get stronger over the next titles.
ive seen people say the character designs are rather bland, dull, but for me they were just about well enough detailed and memorable, and for once i can say the same, if not more, about the monster designs, its not very often im fond of them, i was really in love. especially cie'ths designs.
the real strengths of FFXIII are clearly its visuals and music. the soundtrack is literally top notch. not a single bad track and genuienly heavenly tunes blessing my ears. i was already captured by the title music. even the story seems genuienly amazing, and im excited to see what more it has to offer and how it will continue, hoping for the world building to not go down in vain.
im satisfied enough as i am, but FFXIII could benefit from a remaster of some sort, so heres to hoping it will happen someday, and that it will be done well as to not tarnish even more its name.
theres no way of knowing whats right. all we can do is believe ourselves... i might not make all the right choices, but as long as im the one who decided what to do, theres nothing to regret.
"we are uniquely endowed with freewill, but for humans free will only leads to flourishing when we use freedom in a way that accords with our fixed human nature and the fixed ultimate telos that God has given to each of us."
