I was a Solider
Final Fantasy XIII cuts back to the heart of who I am in a way. Back when I was still fresh eyed, bushy tailed and curious about the world of games outside that which I had been introduced to by my grandfather all the way back in those halcyon days of Metal Gear Solid. RPGs had already had their way with my interests, sparking a passion for slipping into the mind of fantastical 'others' and leading a journey of my own- but the mythic JRPG remained mere hearsay. Those would talk about them with bated whispers, but never enough to justify what they are to exist apparent from western RPGs. And so when I saw how Final Fantasy was considered the genre mecca, and one just happened to be on the Xbox 360, I rushed out to try... Final Fantasy XIII-2. But I decided I wanted to understand the story first so went out and got Final Fantasy XIII.
I'll tell you right now that I never finished it back in those days. In fact I skirted all the way up to Chapter 11, the chapter when the game actually opens up, before I became aggrieved at the fact I was still receiving general tutorials by the 20 hour mark! I felt like I was under some sort of endless Greek curse, pushing a fantastical boulder up a never peaking hill buckling under the weight of my self-inflicted horror. In some ways I thought I would never go back to Final Fantasy ever again. Then the marketing for XV cured me of that delusion right away. Still never played my 360 version of XIII-2 though... waste of money, that one.
So now I can come back with more aged eyes, experience like some sort of vintage beverage, matured on gaming, on RPGs, on Final Fantasy- that I can truly judge this game not just as a product of it's tumultuous time, but as a timeless product of it's storied peers. Sure XIII had a reputation all these years for being painfully linear with poor gameplay systems and a confusing plot- but those were the gripes of a new generation of gamers coming into a franchise they knew nothing about, which likely relied a bit on franchise recognition to score it's appeal, right? I mean, XIII has it's die-hard fans like any other game in the franchise; could that be because there's a seriously charming little game under the somewhat lacklustre presentation, such as with IX or perhaps due to a little of self-delusion spurred by personal bias- as for XII?
Coming back to the game was kind of like stirring old memories, first of that- I don't care what anyone says- gorgeous soundtrack- and next of that, even to this day, actually over-cluttered cutscene design. Final Fantasy is no stranger to hyper cutscenes, don't get me wrong- I've now finished one game out of all the major numbered releases and I can attest- when CGI entered the tool-box the Final Fantasy devs lost a little bit of their collective minds. But XIII seems special. A mix of seriously high-quality art being delivered, but edited together as though by a blindman on acid with a deep fear of visual action storytelling. As a kid I straight couldn't follow the action and assumed it was too complex for me. As an adult I can see- no it's just messy and unclear- hiding what appears to be truly top-tier animation work for some incomprehensible reason. At least the story isn't confusing to the point where such bad visual storytelling would become an issue right?... right...
As I alluded, Final Fantasy XIII does indeed have a reputation for being one of the most confusing of the franchise and to this, on the otherside, I can both empathise and pooh-pooh. Following the game is fairly easy to do when you're uninterrupted and insistent on paying attention, but unfortunately being in such a state does highlight the ways in which the scenario is honestly poorly told in a lot of the small ways. I'm talking the ancillary little tidbits, side character conduct and motivation stuff, but that does build towards a general problem. I don't know anyone who likes having to keep up with an unlocked codex to comprehend what was bizarrely omitted in the previous chapter. That is until the final chapter wherein the big moments start flying by unexplained and the story kind of falls on it's face. Bit of a shame really.
But I'm jumping ahead of myself. Final Fantasy XIII is the first, and so far only, game in the franchise to go truly Sci-Fi. VII flirted with Cyberpunk elements, but XIII whipped out the colossally impractical gravity trains, cybernetically trained animal-robot police force and embarrassingly fragile, constantly erupting into balls of hellfire, spaceships. (Honestly, I don't think a single spaceship survives longer than 5 minutes throughout this game.) Many of the classic Final Fantasy monsters have returned with metal make-overs, not quite as charming as the cyber-makeovers of ATLUS' monster-roster in Soul Hackers, but different enough to be genuinely distinct amidst a franchise that dances a little close to stiflingly homogeneous at times. (Then there's whatever the hell this game's version of Goblins are meant to be. I don't like them. Goblin Slayer would never.)
Within that Sci-Fi world is spun a narrative detailing an unlikely team spun on the loom of a fate they do not want, and fleeing a society that vilifies them and realities that haunt them. I think that last part might contribute to the actually bizarre level of distaste this main cast are instinctively fed by the wider Final Fantasy community. Honestly, I think this is an okay cast by Final Fantasy standards, Lightning is actually a solid leader who really confronts her own demons and grows caring, maybe a touch too caring, for her tribulations. Fang is a fun sarcastic hard-ass, Vanille uses her innocence to hide her habitual lying, Hope has a genuine purpose for being 'mopey' and develops from it, Snow... well, Snow is kind of annoying in an endearing way. Of course no one has anything bad to say about Sazh- dude, is just a real one. However- I can see how people can get fed up with the fact the majority of the story is just them running away.
Yes, there's a surprising lack of forward momentum in the narrative despite the oodles of lore fed throughout the story thanks to the level design which shackles Final Fantasy XIII. You might have heard of the 'curse of Hallways' this game is infected with, but I don't consider a linear level design to be the end of all quality in the world. For me it's more how Square handles those hallways. Filling them to the brim with an obscene amount of enemy encounters, most of which are copy-pastes of the last encounter despite the fact these aren't randomly decided fights but explicitly placed- for no other reason than to provide players with the correct amount of Crystarium Points to level up a pretty linear iteration of the Final Fantasy X levelling system, which itself was a levelling system I found restrictive and not that interesting. (XIII did it worse, go figure.)
The real problem here comes from the fact that Final Fantasy XIII, like XII before it, really doesn't have it when it comes to combat. In another attempt to evolve away from turn-based, XIII evolves the ATB system into a completely real time action combat mode only without direct control of your character. You feed them attack instructions which they carry out when the ATB bar fills, meanwhile they wander about and position themselves completely randomly- which might put them in or out of danger of group sweep attacks depending on how evil the AI is feeling. It already feels disconnecting, taking us out of the button-to-action relationship we expect with our characters, but that becomes even more of an issue when you realise that there are so few actions actually available to the player that the most effective way to play, even through to most of the endgame- is to just tab the built-in 'auto que' button which selects moves for you.
I quite literally played my way through most of the first 20 hours of this game treating it as a complete second-screen experience whilst watching 'Gotham', because the combat was that mindless to get through. Until chapter 3 there's literally nothing to combat but tapping A and occasionally throwing a 'heal everyone' potion down. From there you unlock the 'Paradigm shift' system in which you dynamically switch classes and roles. It's basically the Dress-Sphere system from X-2 only with it's own problems to be neither better or worse than that system. It changes the entire team at once so you actually work into a strategy, but you can only switch to pre-decided formations you created outside of combat- so no adapting to the situation at hand. It's also largely moot of a system until the end of chapter 10 because Square are terrified of actually challenging the player until they're certain they know how to press the R1 button on their controllers to change the party. (Or is it L1? Whoops, guess I need another 10 hours of baby-fights, Square!)
But Chapter 11 is where is gets good right? That's what everyone says! No, Chapter 11 is where it becomes active. Where you finally get battles that require you to actually know what you're doing. But by that I mean- slot in a utility character to build up buffs or debuffs, then switch to combat roles and tap auto until you win. It still isn't engaging or interesting. The best this combat gets is the hard boss fights where buff and debuff timing becomes relevant, but then that creeping feeling of not being in direct control rears up and you start feeling never quite in the moment. Meaning that Final Fantasy XIII either feels totally dull or frustratingly hands-off; which might make it just as bad as XII's combat in a way. Except XII is challenging just for trying to figure out to program those idiots to be useful, XIII at least comes packed with competent AI companions who dynamically update to take advantage of revealed weaknesses. I'll give them that.
But where XIII really let me down was with it's world. I've said it before but the worlds of Final Fantasy are really where they go above and beyond the genre to deliver unforgettable adventures across iconic world spaces- and given that this was the first SCI-FI focused title I expected something totally unique for the planet Pulse and it's techno-moon of Cocoon. Indeed I'm certain there's a little bit of Midgar expectation here, with the highly developed Moon inhabiting the majority of society starting off the game until you are set free in the wild expanses of the planet fully- juxtaposing aesthetics and nature. Only the game struggles to back that up. A lot of your time in Cocoon feels oddly aesthetically inconsistent. You'll travel across totally industrial caverns of Sci-Fi train yards to neon techno forests and then just hit a natural looking forest. Or a sunset soaked beach. The only real distinction between Cocoon and Pulse is that you never meet anyone actually living on Pulse, so it feels abandoned. They don't really feel distinct enough. Additionally, because of the linear nature of the story which keeps you constantly in combat and literally never provides an opportunity to explore a hub outside of one ill-fitting carnival-esque chapter, there's no sense of space and world even in Cocoon. The world doesn't feel real, I don't know it's people, I'm not sure why I'm supposed to care about saving it's brainwashed citizens from their self-inflicted fate.
Then there's the brunt of the writing itself, which is hardly Square at their best. I can tell there's a level of nostalgia played up for points, from the moment Lightning haughtily declares "I was a Solider", I knew they were playing the hits- if in reverse. But then you get characters who feel like they're written for a more light 'FFIX' style world. The teenage revolutionaries of NORA, for example? "What's our Motto" hero-obsessive Snow asks, to cries of "The army's no match for NORA!" I'm sorry that's just dumb and uninspired. Like an intern was tasked with coming up with that quip at the nth hour. I found myself really hoping that NORA would undergo some wild sort of subversion and this didn't turn into another SeeDS situation. But of course, I was wrong. They're are inexplicably correct child-soldiers for the whole game. Yippie!
This story is also chock full of the kinds of lore stuffing that Final Fantasy is typically a lot more natural with. In the first few chapters you'll be attacked with terms left-right and centre which, if you're not one to pay attention and file away fantasy terms, is going to overwhelm you. Fal'Cie, Pulse Fal'Cie, L'Cie- it's all a lot to get to grasp with- and then you'll have plot points which are really badly shoved into the story but explained in a bit more detail in the codex entries shoved you way. Unfortunately those same entries are stuffed with ancillary overlapping summaries as you try to parse them for anything new. Then there are straight omissions to the story which make what should have been important plot points fall flat. Cid doesn't ever get to explain his intentions so his twist falls flat when Snow attempts to throw his motivations back at him (given we never knew those supposed motivations to begin with), Vanille casually drops that She actually turned into Ragnarok last time around and no one reacts to that bombshell. (As though it had already been revealed in a scene earlier that was just never actually shot.) You spend a whole chapter looking for Obera, first just for a place to regroup and then suddenly it's about finding a way to lose your brands? It feels badly cut, as though from a first time director stressed for time.
There's also a few narrative inconsistencies with gameplay, such as the electric bird fights in Chapter 9 which feature a cutscene wherein Lighting, Fang and Snow square up to a monstrous battle only for gameplay to fix you with an unswitchable team of Lightning, Fang and Hope. Kind of feels like the left hand didn't know what the right one was doing when inconsistencies like that start popping up.
But for all it's faults I did find charm here, largely in the core cast. Lightning's guilt is apparent and drips into her wrath- creating an interesting early dynamic between her and Hope, whose blind-anger is hilariously ignored by Snow for far too long into the game. Snow's obsessive hero-complex goes unaddressed for the entire game, unfortunately, making him a regression even from VII's Barret. Sazh and Vanille are adorable together, surrogate fatherhood always works well in stories like these. And Chapter 11's mission system does feel like the game at it's best- as through the bulk and heart of the game was always waiting on Pulse and you've just been treading water for that moment. But given how that is 20 hours in, I'm not sure I can call that a complete positive.
Chapter 10 might be the worst in the game actually, an endless spiralling dungeon of identical fights, reused assets and no-where storytelling culminating up to five hours of nothingness. It exists purely to give you the points to level up so that Gran Pulse is feasible- but here's the thing- Square could have just balanced the levelling experience more so they didn't have to flood crappy fights so often! Isn't that how you're supposed to design your damn games? You'd think designers like Larian and Square were in totally different industries for how differently they grasp seemingly basic topics. (Though to be fair, Larian of this time were putting out Divinity 2 which is hardly any better in it's own right.)
But the worst it all, which really put me off sticking around to the endgame, was the ending. I expect an ass-pull from a Final Fantasy game- they're not exactly known for their impeccable storytelling, but Final Fantasy XIII felt like it was stitched together by 12 different writers at the end who had never met each other in their lives. Let us not forget the moment where >spoiler< Fang tries to save Vanille from becoming Rangarok by submitting herself to be turned, and when Vanille cries "What about saving Cocoon, we promised" Fang remarks "I also made another promise, to protect my family." only for Fang to, inexplicably, turn around and try to kill Vanille, you know: her family- which would kind of defeat the purpose of deciding to become Ragnarok in her stead, no? That's probably the biggest mess but unfortunately the ending is stuffed full on miracle nonsense that flies in the face of the facts the story attempt to run on to that point. To such a degree that I'm reading online the sequel games have to retroactive script-doctor these events so they aren't total gibberish- which no other Final Fantasy has ever had to do before, XIII is a trail blazer for terrible endings in this storied franchise.
Overall Final Fantasy XIII feels like an attempt to reconcile the expectation of Final Fantasy to a 2010's Western audience, which the games industry of that day were convinced only found value in simplified action-movie style experiences- which led to a stifling homogenisation it would take nearly a decade for the industry to shake off. A lot of Final Fantasy XIII's decisions feel muddied in this pursuit and it results in what I would honestly call the worst Final Fantasy game I've played, and by this point I have actually played them all. It's boring for far too long, and never rises to be interesting enough to offset that delay- even at it's absolute best. I'm glad I played it for my own history with the franchise, finishing the first Final Fantasy game I ever fully owned (I played XIII-2's demo first) but I could not recommend this title to anyone, It lacks in gameplay, story and world building. A decent cast cannot cut the slack here. It feels like a bit of shame, given how excited I was for this game, but I can't award this game anymore than a D+ on my rating scale, earned largely because Chapter 11 has a bit of interest, but a single chapter in a 13 chapter long game does not count to a lot on the grand scale. I really wish this game were better, and that it's derision were undeserved. But whilst I think those feelings might be misguided at times, Lighting is a fine character, I cannot relieve Final Fantasy XIII of it's sins. It is indeed the worst mainline Final Fantasy game.
