Final Fantasy XIII, Pt.2: The Godawful GAMEPLAY

Now, when I last spoke about Final Fantasy XIII, I mentioned how I didn't much like the characters (with the exception of Sazh) and I thought the plot was...well, I couldn't speak about it, it was that bad.

I need to build UP to explaining why the plot of Final Fantasy XIII is just so terrible. So instead I'm going to focus on the gameplay and it's mechanics to give you an idea of just how much this game fails. I'll say it. A bad game can have a terrible plot, but have really good GAMEPLAY and we gamers are willing to forgive much. Metroid: Other M's plot wasn't very well-liked. The GAMEPLAY was quite good, but the PLOT, however...notsomuch. So you could argue it was a mixed bag. Half and half.

But...Final Fantasy XIII?

I'll start with how YOU start. Specifically, on the road you start on. You get off a crashed train and onto a freeway.

Or rather...a hallway.

The HALLWAY.

You will always, always, ALWAYS be on some kind of hallway in Final Fantasy XIII, no matter what environment you might think you be in, it boils down to a hallway, with one way in, one way out. You may think the hallway branches off to something good, but...no. It'll just be a potion or some gold or the like. You may find a wide-open area! But...in the end...it's one way in and one way out.

Don't believe me?

Look at THIS.



That's a map of the very first chapter. The first LEVEL. 

And THIS below is a map of the fourth after your group crashes their ship into the wildnerness of cocoon. You would THINK this means a bunch of wide-open spaces and places to explore, right?



Nope. Not a bit.



Look at this. Even on the planet Gran Pulse when things open up...there is one way in...and one...way...out.

Say, remember this little game called Final Fantasy 7? It had this big ol' planet called "Midgar"? Y'know, which had this huge city, and these mystical dungeons you could explore, and all these TOWNS and stuff? Things that Final Fantasy XIII doesn't have?



Hell, think back to Final Fantasy 4!
s2.photobucket.com/user/ngrey6…

LOOK at all those towns you could visit! There were fascinating duneons you could explore! In Final Fantasy 4 and in 7 and even in Ten could look inside of these dungeons to fight dangerous monsters that would challenge your skills and push you to new levels you'd never reached before. In fact, Final Fantasy X had Omega's dungeon. See, the Maesters of the religion centered around "Yu Yevon" branded Omega the priest a traitor after he rebelled and exiled him off the mainlands of the planet Spira and onto some small island ruins. Omega's hatred for Yevon grew so great and intense that when he died, he transformed into the fearsome fiend known as "Omega Weapon". You FIGHT him at the end of the dungeon AND you get cool loot: armor, a weapon or two, gaining levels up. None of that in Final Fantasy XIII. Nothing even CLOSE to that...until about 20 hours in.

I repeat.

TWENTY. HOURS. IN. Do you get to enjoy anything CLOSE to that. How? Missions. Missions in Final Fantasy XIII are quests that give the player party a target monster to defeat. They can only be found on the world of Gran Pulse and can be repeated. But no. Once you leave Gran Pulse and head back to Cocoon...you can NEVER GO BACK. NOR can you return to previous parts of the world you've visited!

Oh, and remember in Final Fantasy Seven there was this little thing called the "Gold Saucer" that had that really cute dating scenario? You could go on dates with characters you'd cozied up to, or play casino games and do Chocobo racing? That was fun, right? Well on Cocoon in Final Fantasy XIII, they have "Nautilus Park". It's an amusement park that's dedicated to chocobos...



Can you RIDE them? No. Are there any mini-games? No. Any card games? No. There is LITERALLY! Nothing to do! At an AMUSEMENT PARK LEVEL. Absolutely NOTHING AT ALL!

I don't know how you screw something as simple as minigames in an amusement park level up. I honestly don't. But that's nothing compared...to the leveling up system. See, here's how it works. It's called the "Crystarium".



Leveling up shouldn't be so hard. Once you get a level, you should, depending upon what class you are as a character, be able to freely CHOOSE what spell or bonus you want.

But the crystarium removes any kind of choice whatsoever. It's sooooo...SOOOOOO...BORING! All you do is hold down the "X" or "A" button and then watch as a glowing little ball goes around the circle that represents what job you've picked out from the crystarium. It lights up the little dots around it that represent things like strength boosts or increased magic points or increased health points. It SEEMS like you're choosing what bonuses you want. But you're not. Because you have no choice, you HAVE to take every single one of the bonuses if you want to continue upgrading the job. You have to go around in a circle and pretty much get every bonus the game gives you, regardless of how silly the improvement might be.

For example. Let's take Vanille there. She's...a super happy "loli" character who is not going to make a good sentinel or "tank". She's not gonna be very good at physical combat. So when the game says that your next bonus in the cyrystarium ring is going to be a "Strength +3", all you can think is "Whoop de doo, she's a MAGE, I don't want her hitting people with sticks, I want her frying them with fireballs!"

Worse still, after about half an hour of gameplay and fighting monsters that, by the way, are NOT RANDOM AND ARE SET DOWN AT SPECIFIC POINTS ON EVERY MAP WHICH YOU CAN'T IGNORE...you realize you can't max out your job anymore. You've gotten all the bonuses. You can SEE other rings off in the distance at other parts of the crystarium and you don't understand why you can't reach them yet, even though there should be a connection opening up considering how far you've advanced your jobs. Well, guess what? The game KEEPS you from reaching those far-off rings that are greyed out. You can only reach them after fighting bosses. You can max out all three of the jobs you're given at the beginning of the game but once you beat the next boss, BAM, the crystarium opens up. Until then, you're sitting on your behind, with three maxed-out skill trees, not able to get any stronger unless the game says so.

That shouldn't be how games WORK! It goes completely against all RPGs and how they've worked for decades! The idea is that you have the freedom to choose what you want your character to do...but there are no choices in this game! You can't choose to go into towns and talk to people to learn about what's going on around you. You can't go in and buy weapons or armor or the like at shops because the shops, the crafting stores and the save points are all these little floating robo-things that pop up from time to time on your path...which is a HALLWAY. Even the levelling up system is a hallway because it's a straight line that's been curled around into a circle, with one way in, and only one way OUT!

And the spells? Booooooring. Spells at one point were vibrant and beautiful. They had elaborate casting. The "ultima" spell made it look like space itself was bending in on itself and ripping the space/time continuum open, man! The "Knights of the Round" summon brought forth Arthur and his Knights to open up a can of whoop-ass! But here in Final Fantasy XIII? It's just slightly bigger fireballs and lightning spell. And the summons? They're basically just HD versions of the summons from Final Fantasy X. Take a look at this. This is Final Fantasy XIII, with Fang summoning Bahamut.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSLZcu…

This is Final Fantasy X, with YUNA summoning Bahamut.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSDU-t…

Note the similarities in fighting style and design. HOWEVER, I would like to give Final Fantasy XIII one point. Snow's summon is Shiva.

...because his name is Snow. So he gets the ice goddess summon. BUT...see, when Shiva first visits him...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tftq1…

TRANSFORMERS! More than meets the eye!

That's right. The most "bro" character gets two women. Hot ice goddesses. Who turn into a MOTORCYCLE which he then RIDES. This is something every 90's badass streetwise action hero wants. It's so Freudian. The ultimate submission of two unbelievably powerful women to his desires so that he can make use of them however he sees fit, and not only dominate their bodies, but use them to fight his battles for him. He's RIDING them, get it?

But back to my earlier point, which is that the levelling-up system sucks. BUT! I will be fair. Once you reach Gran Pulse, again, about TWENTY HOURS INTO THE GAME, the Crystarium opens up and every character can take every job. But again, I say...what's the point? People like Hope are my mage. He's never gonna throw his boomerang at enemies, he's going to chuck LIGHTNING spells like I want him too. I'll have SNOW punch enemies around, that's what he's good for! Same with Sazh, who has TWO PISTOLS THAT CAN TURN INTO A SHOTGUN. He. IS. AWESOME.

But now...it's time I talked about one of the biggest mistakes Final Fantasy ever did...the "paradigm" system. The CLASS system. See, you can, like in Final Fantasy X-2, switch between classes. Unfortunately you don't have quite the variety you had back there, when you had interesting abilities and fascinating outfits to go with it. No, here, you have "paradigms", and with "paradigms" are specific skills and attacks befitting whatever class you belong to. Only...well...there's a little thing called the "auto-battle" thing tied into the paradigm system.

On one level, it makes sense. You're facing down an enemy that, for example, is based in fire. And you're gonna wanna use an ice spell. And why waste time scrolling down the battle menu when you could just push a button and have the game automatically cast an ice spell? Why do the fighting when the game can do it for you? Why not just have the characters cast that spell over and over again?

Well then...why do you need me playing your game? Why involve the player at all? With the "auto-battle" system in place, you're removing the right for the player to freely choose what spell they wanna use. There's just so few tactics. The combat moves far too fast. There's no significant decision making. Worse still, all of the bosses cast "doom" on you. When you first fight with your summoned monsters to tame them into fighting for you, they cast "doom", which puts a timer over your head, and when the timer runs out...you die. PLOP. But it gets worse. Because all the OTHER bosses cast "doom" on you too if you take too long! You don't have time to mix it up with new strategies. You HAVE to beat the monster the way the game wants you to in as exact a manner as possible or it'll KILL you.

Oh. And by the way: if the leader of your party dies...the game is over. Seriously. It ONLY gives you game over if your team party leader dies. Doesn't matter if you're fighting with Snow, Sazh and Lightning. If Lightning is the team leader and she croaks...you lose. Oh, and you can't run away from fights either. Yes. You can't choose to run away. You've got no choice but to fight.

And speaking OF fighting...I think I should tell you about weapons and how you can upgrade them. At first, it seems simple. You'll find things like "Cei'th tears" or "Strange Fluid" or "Wicked Fangs" in treasure chests or you'll win them from monsters. The stuff turns into Experience Points which you can use on weapons to level them up so the weapons get better by increasing in strength or agility or gaining special effects. SOUNDS simple, right?



Unfortunately, it's not. See, for starters, you don't know how many experience points each weapon has to gain to level up, and the amount of experience points you'll get from each item varies, PLUS it seems to change depending on what weapon you want to upgrade. Furthermore, weapon components modify a hidden item value called bonus points. When an item has enough bonus points, it gets bonus experience from components. Organic components will INCREASE bonus points and synthetic components DECREASE bonus points. And the minute your weapon reaches a new level, the "bonus meter" you've accumulated vanishes and you've gotta do the whole thing AAAAALL over again!

...you wanna know how I know how organic components INCREASE bonus points and how synthetic components DECREASE them? I looked it up on the internet. No, there's nothing about this in the instruction manual and neither is there a "data log" for you to read in-game.

So, class...what have we learned about the game?

1. There are no towns to explore in and no NPCs to chat it up with.

2. The levels are built like hallways.

3. The level-UP system is built like a hallway.

4. The summoning system and the class system appear to be a clone of Final Fantasy X.

5. The crafting system is needlessly complicated.

6. There's no strategy involved in the battles because the game forces you to fight the bosses and the monsters a certain way, and if you take too long, they force a TIMER onto you.

7. The monsters are invariant and are planned to the last detail without an ounce of randomness, you have to fight them and can't avoid them if you want to level up.

8. There aren't really any mini-games or subquests or the like.

ALL of this...would KILL...an RPG. Let alone Final Fantasy. The characters are almost all unlikable. The game is frustrating and not FUN. There's no familiar elements to ground old fans in, and what's put in will just annoy new fans because it plays less like an RPG and more like a playable movie. HELL! You heal...after EVERY BATTLE. Seriously! For NO reason, the game will just heal you after every battle!

So what's left if the characters and the gameplay mechanics aren't good? What's left?

...the...GULP...plot.

...oh God help me, the plot.