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Earnestly
Apr 24, 2010

Jazz hands!

Nathilus posted:

To everyone who talked poo poo about Advent Children, gently caress you. It's flawed in various ways but the nonstop barrage of awesome characters, locations, and combat make it a one way ticket to nerdgasmville.

Here are some things that actually happen over the course of the movie: Tifa gets hurled at a wall and owns the loving landing, nearly destroying the back wall of Aeris' church. Cloud beats the poo poo out of Bahamut in mid-air after being boosted into the stratosphere by a gravity defying chain of his friends. Everyone smugly sits around on the airship while Cloud beats the crap out of Sephiroth by using the Six Paths of Pain. Cloud continually pulls other swords out of his sword :black101:. Reno and Rude walk around all over the place being awesome and getting their asses kicked. Rufus outshines anything he does in the games and pisses off the whiny wannabe Sephiroths by DODGING A loving BULLET and hurling himself off of a giant building with Jenova's core in hand.

I could go on and on. Such a good movie. Then again my favorite movie ever is Big Trouble in Little China, so clearly I have a tolerance for good cheese.

Advent Children is the Transformers 2 of the Final Fantasy series.

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Winks
Feb 16, 2009

Alright, who let Rube Goldberg in here?
The 'making of' XIII book explains that it's Lindzei they're looking for by opening the unseen gate (called Etro's gate in XIII-2), but that there's no guarantee that even if they could open it that Lindzei would be there. And the Pulse fal'cie are looking for Pulse, they're just not willing to sacrifice humanity to do it. Both call their respective god the 'maker'.

NikkolasKing
Apr 3, 2010



Spiritus Nox posted:

It's simple enough to rationilize - either Space Pope is looking for his own Maker, the Maker of all the Cocoon Fal'cie (Lindzei) and lied to Raines because he's a generic villain and an rear end in a top hat, or the Maker of the Gods (Bhuniberzi) and by extension their own creations. I doubt the writers were thinking about that from the start, but I've seen more damning plot holes. It's not like the details of the mythology have any immediate import on 13 anyway.

I just don't like how it undermines the game's entire frickin' message. You're supposed to be heroes carving your own destiny by resisting the tyrannical gods. It's very simple and I can respect it.

But when a god comes along last second and saves you because you were just pawns all along, it shoots the game's theme in the foot and then everything else just tumbles down and loses its value.

I would not have really liked XIII but I wouldn't absolutely hate it either if it had not been for that Deus Ex Machina at the end. There are parts of the game I legitimately like but they become hard to enjoy when I know what bullshit awaits.

Spiritus Nox
Sep 2, 2011

NikkolasKing posted:

I just don't like how it undermines the game's entire frickin' message. You're supposed to be heroes carving your own destiny by resisting the tyrannical gods. It's very simple and I can respect it.

But when a god comes along last second and saves you because you were just pawns all along, it shoots the game's theme in the foot and then everything else just tumbles down and loses its value.

I would not have really liked XIII but I wouldn't absolutely hate it either if it had not been for that Deus Ex Machina at the end. There are parts of the game I legitimately like but they become hard to enjoy when I know what bullshit awaits.

They accomplished what they set out to do, though. All Etro did was thaw out Lightning and the others because she's soft-hearted and dumb. Ragnarok and the crystal tower, defeating Barthandelus, that was all the party. Etro just threw them a bone and a happier ending at the very end.

Contrived? Sure. Less poignant than the party sacrificing themselves to save the people on Cocoon? I think so. Poorly written and explained? You bet.

But it's not the steaming pile of rear end it's fashionable to claim it is these days.

Cityinthesea
Aug 7, 2009
See I know where you're coming from, I do! You don't have to play 13-2 if you don't want, but it does that message much better than 13 does. I hated 13 but I did really like 13-2 (probably 2nd favorite post SNES era after 12)

Besides, from what I understand (these are pretty big spoilers for 13-2) Etro changed the fates of the protagonists of 13, and that basically hosed her, the world and the protagonists of 13-2. 13-2 also ends with Sarah dying so...

Oxxidation
Jul 22, 2007

Spiritus Nox posted:

They accomplished what they set out to do, though. All Etro did was thaw out Lightning and the others because she's soft-hearted and dumb. Ragnarok and the crystal tower, defeating Barthandelus, that was all the party. Etro just threw them a bone and a happier ending at the very end.

Contrived? Sure. Less poignant than the party sacrificing themselves to save the people on Cocoon? I think so. Poorly written and explained? You bet.

But it's not the steaming pile of rear end it's fashionable to claim it is these days.

You just listed three different synonyms for "bad" and then said, "But that doesn't make the ending bad!"

Even if there was a way to argue that FFXIII's plot isn't a complete embarrassment even by JRPG standards (there's not), you don't seem like the best proponent for it

Winks
Feb 16, 2009

Alright, who let Rube Goldberg in here?

NikkolasKing posted:

You're supposed to be heroes carving your own destiny by resisting the tyrannical gods. It's very simple and I can respect it.
They weren't in control of their destiny though. Their focus was saving Cocoon, and that's exactly what they were doing. Becoming a l'cie was like being diagnosed with terminal cancer though, so even if they succeeded they were as good as dead. Etro saved them from that fate. Except for Vanille and Fang, I suppose...

The Dues Ex Machina that caused the situation in XIII-2 was not the saving of Cocoon, it was freeing everyone from crystal.

Spiritus Nox
Sep 2, 2011

Oxxidation posted:

You just listed three different synonyms for "bad" and then said, "But that doesn't make the ending bad!"

Even if there was a way to argue that FFXIII's plot isn't a complete embarrassment even by JRPG standards (there's not), you don't seem like the best proponent for it

I said the explanation for how they uncrystallized at the end was bad, actually. That doesn't invalidate the whole ending or the whole game.

Of course the last time we discussed this you ignored half my argument and claimed that personal taste was invalid, so I anticipate a thrilling discussion here. :v:

Pesky Splinter
Feb 16, 2011

A worried pug.

Winks posted:

The 'making of' XIII book explains that...

That's not the Ultimanias is it? Because they are a loving bane to story telling.

If the understanding of something is important to the plot, then they should put it in the loving game, not explain it in a supplimentary book. And not be hidden in in-game datalogs and things.

Spiritus Nox posted:

Contrived? Sure. Less poignant than the party sacrificing themselves to save the people on Cocoon? I think so. Poorly written and explained? You bet.

But it's not the steaming pile of rear end it's fashionable to claim it is these days.

How can you not call a story told so badly and obtusely a steaming pile of rear end? The writers failed to tell what amounts to a rather simple story, on a basic level. Even ignoring the Deus ex Machina cop-out, there's so many things wrong with how the story and characters are presented, at which point does it not become a steaming pile, shat onto a page?

NikkolasKing
Apr 3, 2010



Cityinthesea posted:

See I know where you're coming from, I do! You don't have to play 13-2 if you don't want, but it does that message much better than 13 does. I hated 13 but I did really like 13-2 (probably 2nd favorite post SNES era after 12)

Besides, from what I understand (these are pretty big spoilers for 13-2) Etro changed the fates of the protagonists of 13, and that basically hosed her, the world and the protagonists of 13-2. 13-2 also ends with Sarah dying so...

Well...maybe I'll try XIII-2. I'll see if I can find it cheap somewhere.


Winks posted:

They weren't in control of their destiny though. Their focus was saving Cocoon, and that's exactly what they were doing. Becoming a l'cie was like being diagnosed with terminal cancer though, so even if they succeeded they were as good as dead. Etro saved them from that fate. Except for Vanille and Fang, I suppose...

Uh, I'm pretty sure their Focus was to destroy Cocoon. THat's one of my main issues with the game. he heroes insist their real Focus was to save Cocoon but remember when they were all turned to crystal? It was right after they destroyed Orphan ie. right after they doomed Cocoon.

Granted, Cocoon was doomed anyway thanks to Barthandalus but the point remains tht the heroes never overcame their fate. Their fate was to kill Orphan and after they did that, they were effectively dead until a bigger god saved them.

Tempo 119
Apr 17, 2006

NikkolasKing posted:

I just don't like how it undermines the game's entire frickin' message. You're supposed to be heroes carving your own destiny by resisting the tyrannical gods.

When I played I had no idea about the goddess stuff, I thought they'd gone for the old anime trope where the heroes achieve the impossible and win through sheer force of will, so I thought it was a bad ending for the opposite reason - they'd followed those themes straight into a really cheap, pat ending.

By the time I found out I was wrong during XIII-2 I was okay with it because it swings so hard in the other direction, it starts to work again.

Winks
Feb 16, 2009

Alright, who let Rube Goldberg in here?

NikkolasKing posted:

Uh, I'm pretty sure their Focus was to destroy Cocoon. THat's one of my main issues with the game. he heroes insist their real Focus was to save Cocoon but remember when they were all turned to crystal? It was right after they destroyed Orphan ie. right after they doomed Cocoon

It was not. They were Pulse L'cie, not Cocoon l'cie. Serah's focus was to tell them their focus. That's why she turned to crystal right after telling them to protect Cocoon. Destroying Orphan ultimately stops the Cocoon fal'cie plans to wipe out Cocoon to open the gate (because they're, you know, dead), creating the crystal pillar prevented the destruction of Cocoon and foiled the Cocoon falcie's plans.

Momomo
Dec 26, 2009

Dont judge me, I design your manhole
Weren't they turned into cie'th and not crystals? There's a big difference between the two, because the former was just Orphan deciding their time was up.

Silvain
May 19, 2006

I'm kinda awesome.

Momomo posted:

Weren't they turned into cie'th and not crystals? There's a big difference between the two, because the former was just Orphan deciding their time was up.

They aren't talking about that part. They're talking about the ending where the heroes get crystallized but then get uncrystallized due to Etro.

Spiritus Nox
Sep 2, 2011

Pesky Splinter posted:

How can you not call a story told so badly and obtusely a steaming pile of rear end? The writers failed to tell what amounts to a rather simple story, on a basic level. Even ignoring the Deus ex Machina cop-out, there's so many things wrong with how the story and characters are presented, at which point does it not become a steaming pile, shat onto a page?

Because I liked the characters and enjoyed their development, which was basically all there was to the first half of the story, and I don't think the weaknesses of the larger plot invalidates that.

NikkolasKing
Apr 3, 2010



Winks posted:

It was not. They were Pulse L'cie, not Cocoon l'cie. Serah's focus was to tell them their focus. That's why she turned to crystal right after telling them to protect Cocoon. Destroying Orphan ultimately stops the Cocoon fal'cie plans to wipe out Cocoon to open the gate (because they're, you know, dead), creating the crystal pillar prevented the destruction of Cocoon and foiled the Cocoon falcie's plans.

Wait hold on. Vanille and Feng saving Cocoon has nothing to do with anything. The party were turned to crystal before the girls saved Cocoon so you cannot argue they completed their Focus of saving Cocoon before Cocoon as even saved.

Also Barthandalus says outright that Serah's Focus was nothing more than to bring the heroes together. There is nothing to contradict his word except Snow's baseless theories.

quote:

Barthandalus
Allow me to help you see the truth of things. The moment you arrived, your friend wept crystal tears. This was because her Focus required that you be brought together. That girl did nothing but assemble the tools for Cocoon's destruction.

NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 02:08 on May 22, 2012

Winks
Feb 16, 2009

Alright, who let Rube Goldberg in here?

NikkolasKing posted:

Wait hold on. Vanille and Feng saving Cocoon has nothing to do with anything. The party were turned to crystal before the girls saved Cocoon so you cannot argue they completed their Focus of saving Cocoon before Cocoon as even saved.
I just watched the ending cutscene again to make sure, but the party is not shown turning to crystal before Ragnaros does its thing, and then afterwards the camera descends to them being crystal.

quote:

Also Barthandalus says outright that Serah's Focus was nothing more than to bring the heroes together. There is nothing to contradict his word except Snow's baseless theories.
Barthandalus is a Cocoon fal'cie who wants them to destroy him, Orphan, and Cocoon. He's not a reliable source. On the other hand, the person who's only job was to tell the party their focus and is 'rewarded' by the Pulse fal'cie for doing so is pretty reliable. The Pulse fal'cie at the beginning of the game is not in cahoots with Barthandalus. They are mortal enemies.

Pesky Splinter
Feb 16, 2011

A worried pug.

Spiritus Nox posted:

Because I liked the characters and enjoyed their development, which was basically all there was to the first half of the story, and I don't think the weaknesses of the larger plot invalidates that.

It plays a pretty big part if the plot of the story is the goal of the protagonists. And having half the cast be insufferable only to get them to become merely annoying by the end game, does count as development, I suppose.

[e]: Yeah, that is a personal thing, or three things, which I can sum up as:

I'M A HERO!

I'll kill you for what you did to mother...except, I'll be passive agreesive about it...well maybe I won't kill you...but mother!

Crikey! I'm smiling on the inside, but crying on the inside- *annoying anime gesture*
VVV

Pesky Splinter fucked around with this message at 03:31 on May 22, 2012

Spiritus Nox
Sep 2, 2011

Pesky Splinter posted:

It plays a pretty big part if the plot of the story is the goal of the protagonists. And having half the cast be insufferable only to get them to become merely annoying by the end game, does count as development, I suppose.

It helped that I didn't find them insufferable, so I guess we'll have to part ways on that.

Edit: And in answer to your edit, on the off chance you catch this -


I'M A HERO!

-Well, yeah, Snow's development entails moving beyond the complete, blind confidence and taking some responsibility for his actions, including his failures. This comes to a head in the Palumpolum section when he puts his life in Hope's hands to answer for letting Nora die earlier.

I'll kill you for what you did to mother...except, I'll be passive agreesive about it...well maybe I won't kill you...but mother!

-Again, I thought Hope had a pretty logical progression. Kid sees his mother killed not long after getting dragged out of an idyllic vacation, blames the nearest guy on hand and starts entertaining revenge fantasies. But the kid's still a kid and can't summon the guts to kill Snow right away. Then the next time Snow shows up he's risking life and limb trying to protect Hope, and by now it's occurred to Hope that maybe Snow isn't solely to blame for Nora's death and he's wondering if he can really go through with it. Things again come to a head when Snow allows Hope to take his revenge if he wants it, only to protect Hope from a surprise attack even knowing the kid wants him dead. This is enough to convince Hope that Snow doesn't really deserve to die and that at any rate more bloodshed won't really change anything. Not exactly a revolutionary story, but I thought it was a competent one.

Crikey! I'm smiling on the inside, but crying on the inside- *annoying anime gesture*

-Vanille's...probably the weakest character, I admit, but I did think it was interesting to see just how much she was hiding and how much was her fault, and I didn't think it was an unthinkable reaction for a person to put up a brave front while feeling like poo poo about the whole thing - particularly since she gets buddied up with Snow and Hope alot, the two who might've suffered the very most as a result of her actions. Also, I have no idea what *annoying anime gesture* refers to and I'm beginning to get tired of 'anime' being used as an adjective, particularly since I have only a vague idea what classifies something as 'anime' and why it's inherently negative.

Of course, there's still room in there for you to just plain find those traits grating - All I can really say is that I didn't, so I enjoyed the characters. Not much else I can say there, really.

Spiritus Nox fucked around with this message at 06:46 on May 22, 2012

NikkolasKing
Apr 3, 2010



Winks posted:

I just watched the ending cutscene again to make sure, but the party is not shown turning to crystal before Ragnaros does its thing, and then afterwards the camera descends to them being crystal.

Barthandalus is a Cocoon fal'cie who wants them to destroy him, Orphan, and Cocoon. He's not a reliable source. On the other hand, the person who's only job was to tell the party their focus and is 'rewarded' by the Pulse fal'cie for doing so is pretty reliable. The Pulse fal'cie at the beginning of the game is not in cahoots with Barthandalus. They are mortal enemies.

Well my impression was that both Pulse and Cocoon fal'Cie wanted Cocoon destroyed to summon The Maker. Of course no Pulse fal'cie has a speaking role so I can't exactly gauge what they wanted and I admit I could have been wrong.

Even still, I don't think it's conclusive one way or the other. Their Focus might have been to save or destroy Cocoon since they ultimately did both in a sense.

Winks
Feb 16, 2009

Alright, who let Rube Goldberg in here?

NikkolasKing posted:

Well my impression was that both Pulse and Cocoon fal'Cie wanted Cocoon destroyed to summon The Maker. Of course no Pulse fal'cie has a speaking role so I can't exactly gauge what they wanted and I admit I could have been wrong.

Even still, I don't think it's conclusive one way or the other. Their Focus might have been to save or destroy Cocoon since they ultimately did both in a sense.

The intent of the Pulse fal'cie is never really fleshed out beyond the two sides hate each other. The original intent of the Pulse fal'cie was to destroy Cocoon, but after losing the War of Transgression humans on pulse didn't have a sustainable population and died off. If their focus was simply to destroy Cocoon, they would have turned to crystal after killing Orphan and been destroyed with the rest of Cocoon.

I'm not going to disagree that it's poorly explained, but I think that at least the focus part is pretty clear.

ShadeofDante
Feb 17, 2007

speaking of minds! know what's on mine? murders.
I think the whole "defying fate" still is a major theme in XIII, but it wasn't the whole party that was able to do it.

At the end of the game, you destroyed Orphan, and Cocoon is falling, like Barty wanted. SO in the end, he wins right? No, Fang and Vanille stop Cocoon from crashing into Pulse so bam, they defied fate.

Winks posted:

The intent of the Pulse fal'cie is never really fleshed out beyond the two sides hate each other. The original intent of the Pulse fal'cie was to destroy Cocoon, but after losing the War of Transgression humans on pulse didn't have a sustainable population and died off. If their focus was simply to destroy Cocoon, they would have turned to crystal after killing Orphan and been destroyed with the rest of Cocoon.

I'm not going to disagree that it's poorly explained, but I think that at least the focus part is pretty clear.

Pretty sure in the Datalog they talk about the fact the Pulse fal'cie are fighting Cocoon because they didn't agree with Cocoon fal'cie's brilliant idea of how to call God back into the world (massacring the humans) or something similar to that.

Regardless, the execution of XIII's story is at best poo poo, and at worst incomprehensible. It really had some great ideas/themes but it executed every single one of them in the worst way possible.

ShadeofDante fucked around with this message at 17:22 on May 22, 2012

NikkolasKing
Apr 3, 2010



I agree completely with that.

The sole reason I actually liked XIII for a while was the characters. Like Spiritus Nox, I didn't really hate the cast like some people. Sadly when the game started to focus less on the heroes' character development and tried to move the plot along, everything just went to Hell.

Although, very strangely, the end of the game has my favorite and least favorite areas. I think Eden Under Siege was my favorite environment throughout the whole game because of the atmosphere and stuff. But then it was followed by Orphan's Cradle which was just total poo poo as a final dungeon.

Winks
Feb 16, 2009

Alright, who let Rube Goldberg in here?
I only really hated Hope. I was mostly okay with everyone else even if I didn't really know what the hell was going on. What redeemed XIII in my eyes was the battle system. However, you don't even get the full battle system until hours and hours into the game. The first 10 chapters or so feel almost like a super long tutorial for it. So they even managed to screw up my primary praise for the game :v: I'm glad they fixed that in XIII-2.

Edit: Wait wait wait wait. I hated Vanille's voice actor more than anything.

Winks fucked around with this message at 03:28 on May 22, 2012

Fur20
Nov 14, 2007

すご▞い!
君は働か░い
フ▙▓ズなんだね!

ShadeofDante posted:

I think the whole "defying fate" still is a major theme in XIII, but it wasn't the whole party that was able to do it.

Suikoden is about defying fate. FF13 is about how pretentious and annoyingly anime can we be without alienating ninety percent of our consum--oops

Pesky Splinter
Feb 16, 2011

A worried pug.

The White Dragon posted:

Suikoden is about defying fate. FF13 is about how pretentious and annoyingly anime can we be without alienating ninety percent of our consum--oops

It's also the only game where they've basically admitted that they have no loving clue where they're going with the series, and started spouting bullshit:

quote:

After release, director Motomu Toriyama felt that the lower-than-expected review scores for a main Final Fantasy series game came from reviewers who approached the game from a Western point of view. These reviewers were used to games in which the player was given an open world to explore, he said, noting that this expectation contrasted with the vision the team set out to create. He noted that it "becomes very difficult to tell a compelling story when you're given that much freedom".

Oh, that's totally the reason. Yep. Sure is. You hack. Not the unfocused development, and lack of direction; nope! Just Western expectations.

quote:

Yoshinori Kitase stated that they "didn't really intend to work within with the RPG template," but "wanted to create a new game, even a new genre." He stated that "in a lot of senses FFXIII is more like an FPS than an RPG."

I think that delusional babble speaks for itself.

quote:


Square Enix president Yoichi Wada made his thoughts about the reception of the game known to Gamasutra. He said, "Some value it highly, while others really don't like it." He added, "Should Final Fantasy become a new type of game or should Final Fantasy not become a new type of game? The customers have different opinions. It's very difficult to determine which way it should go."

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Games > Final Fantasy Megathread: Some value it highly, while others really don't like it.

[e]: I actually thought the combat was pretty decent. A little unrefined, but decent. But oh god, how they present everything else, jesus christ!
VVV

Pesky Splinter fucked around with this message at 03:55 on May 22, 2012

Azure_Horizon
Mar 27, 2010

by Reene

Nathilus posted:

I don't know what to tell you man, you seem to be from some sort of negaverse where fun sucks.

Then how exactly am I having so much fun? It's a paradox.

XIII has a fantastic universe and mythology, but the writers don't know how to implement it right.

Momomo
Dec 26, 2009

Dont judge me, I design your manhole

quote:

Yoshinori Kitase stated that they "didn't really intend to work within with the RPG template," but "wanted to create a new game, even a new genre." He stated that "in a lot of senses FFXIII is more like an FPS than an RPG."

What the gently caress does that mean?

Spiritus Nox
Sep 2, 2011

Momomo posted:

What the gently caress does that mean?

This feels like devils advocate even to me, but between the linearity and the amount of role-playing left in JRPGs in general, XIII might actually have more in common with a FPS than a real RPG. I mean, I like XIII but I sure as poo poo wasn't doing any Role-playing in it.

Momomo
Dec 26, 2009

Dont judge me, I design your manhole
But you could say that about any other game of the genre. If anything, it's an RPG taken to its total extremes.

Spiritus Nox
Sep 2, 2011

Momomo posted:

But you could say that about any other game of the genre. If anything, it's an RPG taken to its total extremes.

Wait, what? You lost me - by 'the genre' are you talking about RPGs in general or just JRPGs? And how is XIII taken to an RPG's total extremes if we're working off the definition of an RPG as a Game in which you Role Play? :confused:

NikkolasKing
Apr 3, 2010



FPS is a poor term to describe XIII. I think he probably meant something like on-rails. It's not a shooter obviously but more like an on-rails action game or something.

XIII's complete lack of free roaming means that there is no wold building at all. You don't get to "feel" like you're in this world since you just run from bland area to bland area. As such there is no role playing.

How's that?

Momomo
Dec 26, 2009

Dont judge me, I design your manhole

Spiritus Nox posted:

Wait, what? You lost me - by 'the genre' are you talking about RPGs in general or just JRPGs? And how is XIII taken to an RPG's total extremes if we're working off the definition of an RPG as a Game in which you Role Play? :confused:

I meant JRPG, since saying "They expected it to be too western" was a pretty dumb thing for him to say. This was afteral, the 13th main game in the series. People know what to expect when they play Final Fantasy.

Spiritus Nox
Sep 2, 2011

Momomo posted:

I meant JRPG, since saying "They expected it to be too western" was a pretty dumb thing for him to say. This was afteral, the 13th main game in the series. People know what to expect when they play Final Fantasy.

Ah, I see.

I still don't know if that's ENTIRELY fair. I mean, 13 was way different from 12 which was quite a bit different from 10, which was (to my knowledge, having not played 9) quite different from 9 which was still pretty different from 8 which had some notable changes from 7. They DO shake up the game structure a fair bit with each new main series game. Considering that 12 was way more open than a lot of the other final fantasies, people might've been expecting more of that, which would make the linearity quite a bit more jarring. A big reason the linearity didn't bother me was because I'd already heard all the freakouts about it going in, so I didn't go in expecting as much exploration as 12.

Edit: I also feel like, with as weird as the syntax is whenever I hear any japanese developer in some interview or other, that the translation job is pretty rough to begin with, which doesn't help matters any. This could be another reason why these things consistently go over better with the Japanese audience. That's just idle speculation on my part, though.

And I wouldn't say there's know world-building. You're shown a fair bit about how people live in Cocoon and how things fell apart leading up to the purge - there's the flashbacks to the fireworks show at Bodhum, Snow proposing to Serah, Lightning's Worst Birthday Ever, people getting rounded up for the purge, etc, and the datalog fills in gaps. I thought it worked. Some good exploration would've probably made it work better, but I didn't think what we had was bad, and there was the plot justification that the six most wanted people in Cocoon wouldn't be able to just stride around busy towns and hit up the local inn.

Spiritus Nox fucked around with this message at 05:19 on May 22, 2012

Die Sexmonster!
Nov 30, 2005

Pesky Splinter posted:

quote:

After release, director Motomu Toriyama felt that the lower-than-expected review scores for a main Final Fantasy series game came from reviewers who approached the game from a Western point of view. These reviewers were used to games in which the player was given an open world to explore, he said, noting that this expectation contrasted with the vision the team set out to create. He noted that it "becomes very difficult to tell a compelling story when you're given that much freedom".

quote:

Yoshinori Kitase stated that they "didn't really intend to work within with the RPG template," but "wanted to create a new game, even a new genre." He stated that "in a lot of senses FFXIII is more like an FPS than an RPG."

quote:

Square Enix president Yoichi Wada made his thoughts about the reception of the game known to Gamasutra. He said, "Some value it highly, while others really don't like it." He added, "Should Final Fantasy become a new type of game or should Final Fantasy not become a new type of game? The customers have different opinions. It's very difficult to determine which way it should go."

This is an excellent compilation of quotes stating, in short, "Square doesn't know what the gently caress."

Western audiences loved FF games, even when they weren't open-world like GTA. Why? Because the world was more open than FF XIII's. Also, it is not difficult to tell a story in open-world games. It requires a little intuition, maybe early railroading, but... :argh: What a loving cop-out. Especially Wada's quote, jesus. How is he president of the company?

Momomo
Dec 26, 2009

Dont judge me, I design your manhole

Spiritus Nox posted:

I still don't know if that's ENTIRELY fair. I mean, 13 was way different from 12 which was quite a bit different from 10, which was (to my knowledge, having not played 9) quite different from 9 which was still pretty different from 8 which had some notable changes from 7. They DO shake up the game structure a fair bit with each new main series game. Considering that 12 was way more open than a lot of the other final fantasies, people might've been expecting more of that, which would make the linearity quite a bit more jarring. A big reason the linearity didn't bother me was because I'd already heard all the freakouts about it going in, so I didn't go in expecting as much exploration as 12.

I think it's mostly the way they didn't even pretend you weren't just walking in a straight line, combined with the way the battle system appears to do everything for you early on. The illusion of choice really goes a long way in these kinds of games, and this one was just brutally honest.

quote:

And I wouldn't say there's know world-building. You're shown a fair bit about how people live in Cocoon and how things fell apart leading up to the purge - there's the flashbacks to the fireworks show at Bodhum, Snow proposing to Serah, Lightning's Worst Birthday Ever, people getting rounded up for the purge, etc, and the datalog fills in gaps. I thought it worked. Some good exploration would've probably made it work better, but I didn't think what we had was bad, and there was the plot justification that the six most wanted people in Cocoon wouldn't be able to just stride around busy towns and hit up the local inn.

There's world building, it's just that the plot we were given had no idea what to do with it. For instance, they had a really cool thing going with Pulse and Cocoon and had the former all hyped up as this hellish place, but when you actually go there the party accomplishes absolutely nothing.

Spiritus Nox
Sep 2, 2011

Momomo posted:

I think it's mostly the way they didn't even pretend you weren't just walking in a straight line, combined with the way the battle system appears to do everything for you early on. The illusion of choice really goes a long way in these kinds of games, and this one was just brutally honest.

Hm, for me the battle system provided enough meaningful choice to get me invested - it doesn't take THAT long to get the Paradigms all set up to go, and from there on there's a decent bit of strategy to most encounters. There's only one or two definite 'right' strategies until about halfway through the game, but there's enough room to fool around to keep me engaged. That provided enough illusion of choice for me - particularly since I was well aware of how linear it got going in.

I will say, I don't hear a lot of people complain about X's linearity though. It's only less linear in that you can actually backtrack at a few points, and even that's restricted. Hell, you spend most of the game just trying to get from point A to point Z, with a few key points along the way. Maybe it's just because of the clearer endgoal, I dunno.

I'll give you the bit about Pulse. Like I said, I thought the strongest part of the story was the characters, and their development stops being the focus after the Space Pope comes on the scene.

For what it's worth, I did think that Oerba was kind of a poignant scene, however pointless. The party's desperately searching for anything that'll give them a third option out of destroying Cocoon or gettting Cieth'd, and they head to Fang and Vanille's home because hey, someone's gotta be there, right? And then you get there, and it turns out, no - everyone's gone. The city's sinking into the dust and overrun with monsters. And the music turns on and you take a slow, defeated look around, looking for anything to salvage, and nothing. Combine with the music and the character's reactions, and I really liked it. It didn't really accomplish much, but I still thought it was nice.

That's part of why I think 13 gets a needlessly bad rap - the story dips into nonsense at points, but it never stops being well-presented, well-scored nonsense - and video games are wholistic things. Of course, I also know I like the score a lot better than a lot of the haters, so so much for that. v:v:v

TurnipFritter
Apr 21, 2010
10,000 POSTS ON TALKING TIME

Momomo posted:

I think it's mostly the way they didn't even pretend you weren't just walking in a straight line, combined with the way the battle system appears to do everything for you early on. The illusion of choice really goes a long way in these kinds of games, and this one was just brutally honest.

But don't you see, you the player are being put in the same situation as the heroes! You have no choices, no options, no freedom, only the gentle currents of fate dragging you forward until you achieve your goal. Truly FFXIII is a triumph of combining narrative and gameplay.

Someone, somewhere, legitimately believes this and has written a thirty page essay about it.

TurnipFritter fucked around with this message at 05:55 on May 22, 2012

This Jacket Is Me
Jan 29, 2009
I think everyone can agree that FF13's overall story is trash. But what that discussion misses is that the character-on-character stories are actually really good (even by the standards of other media) and they're a beautiful meeting of gameplay and storytelling.

The Hope-Snow story (Snow unintentionally killing Hope's mother, and not knowing that Hope is her son) is excellent, with one character unintentionally antagonizing the other, with the FMV of the interaction between Hope and Snow, Snow saying all the wrong words. Additionally, Snow and Hope's default abilities perfectly complement each other, as if to suggest that they really should be in the same party but can't. I mean, the Hope-Snow story was really, really good.

The Vanille-Sazh story (that Vanille caused Sazh's son to become a l'cie but Sazh doesn't know it was her) was also great. Vanille's character is all about concealment and Vanille-Sazh along with Vanille-Fang give you the impression that all the pressure of keeping the stories straight (as well as intentionally walking into death) is starting to take their toll on Vanille. When the party splits and it's just Vanille and Sazh alone, this really ups the tension because you can see the weight that Sazh is carrying around and Vanille's failed attempts to come clean. Vanille and Sazh also have complementary abilities, but unlike Hope-Snow they spend most of the game together.

Vanille-Fang (that it was Fang, not Vanille, that became Ragnarok) is similar to Vanille-Sazh story in that is deals with concealment. However, in this case Vanille is cast in a good light because she has taken it upon herself to play the integral part in saving Cocoon even as it means certain death for herself.

The Serah-Snow-Lightning triangle is full of dualities, and "becoming a l'cie" is clearly a thin veneer for death in this context, and the contrasting attitudes for acceptance are personified in Snow and Lightning.

I consider concealment a minor theme in FF13, because each story has some character concealing something from another and the progression of the game necessarily reveals the secret. Perhaps the main story is saved a little bit in that regard, by keeping up the theme when it's not clear who or what is responsible for the last moments of the game.

But really, the character interactions in FF13 are a high point in the series and videogames generally. It's just a shame that they're buried under a game that's very, very poorly designed in other respects.

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Schwartzcough
Aug 12, 2009

Don't tease the Octopus, kids!

Spiritus Nox posted:

I will say, I don't hear a lot of people complain about X's linearity though. It's only less linear in that you can actually backtrack at a few points, and even that's restricted. Hell, you spend most of the game just trying to get from point A to point Z, with a few key points along the way. Maybe it's just because of the clearer endgoal, I dunno.

I personally feel X is still a bit too linear, but it's got a lot of diversity and "down time" compared to XIII. The paths between points A, B, and C are really linear, but there's different stuff going on at those points. There are towns to explore, puzzle temples, minigames, optional areas, etc., all spaced out pretty regularly to make it feel like you're doing something besides walking and fighting. So no, you can't go out and explore the world, but the parts of the world that are along your path provide diversity, people and towns for world building, and generally keep things fresh.

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