FF13: Finished. I guess this means I have to rant about it, don't I?
Well, since its a BITCH trying to figure out what's a spoiler and trying to avoid them, etc., assume the rest of this post has a BIG SPOILER WARNING attached throughout it! At least until the last line where I just do the usual "Game is this good" generic nonsense that says nothing specific <.<
Anyway, overall, the game was pretty darn good. Not the best in the series, but its about time we had a decent follow up after FF10 in the series. Let me note that while I liked FF12, the game was niche, and really, was a very weird way to follow up; the game felt way too distant as an FF game to be mainstream, unlike FF13 which while retaining its own unique style, had very FF-like aspects to it, and felt like an FF game in ways more than just "FF game cause its called that!"
The battle system was like the second time I've seen such team oriented combat exemplified so much; the first was Xenosaga 2. What I mean is, some games version of "Teamwork" is mostly just "people do a bunch of generic things and enemies are too good to solo!" like Grandia 3; yes, differences existed, but in the end, its style of Teamwork felt like "Ulf's getting a turn, he can cancel that guy attacking Yuki!" which wasn't unique to Ulf. FF13, you had to take advantage of character's specific uses and exploit them, and find genuine synergy, similar to Xenosaga 2 where everyone had their own defined use and just using the same generic tactics regardless of team would get you killed. And some games don't even do Teamwork at all; Shadow Hearts 1 comes to mind, where its idea of a Party is "Yuri SMASH, everyone else just does stuff to make sure Yuri can continue to SMASH!"
FF13? Suppose Fang is your primary offensive PC. Ok, cool...but just relying on her, and going Sentinel + Medic or some such means the fight will take forever, and has lots of room for error. Now, suppose you threw in someone in Ravager to compliment her? Suddenly, not only are you adding the Ravager's damage to Fang's, you're adding the big fat Chain Boost as well, thereby increasing Fang's own damage as well, so its really a dual factor. The 3rd PC can even add to this by diverting all hits such that the two can play offensively, or what not.
Furthermore, when a PCs, unless the fight was near the end already, you REALLY felt the hit on your team, and want to revive them ASAP. Yes, there's no penalty to winning a fight with dead PCs, but then that's cause the penalty for someone dying is that its a huge blow to the way your team works and what strategies you have. In many games, losing a PC = They don't get EXP, or something, and its really not that big a deal unless the game is a whore about revival; you can often just muscle things out unless its a boss fight, and you only feel like you lose the contribution that PC had, so unless it was an especially important role, you could do fine. FF13, one PC's contribution can really make or break the overall net worth of the team, and you want to hurl that Phoenix Down before things get out of hand.
The battle system was cool for that reason, though would have been nice if you could micromanage the AI some; mostly only mattered for Buffs and Debuffs, but it wasn't TOO bad there, just they'd make questionable decisions ("wait, you're favoring Veil over Bravery when the enemy's only status is Poison because...?".) Alternatively, some form of FF12 Gambits, not necessarily as in depth, to give some sort of priority to abilities like that would have been nice. Still, the game felt like the AI was appropriate at least. Additionally, wasn't fond of "Main PC dies = game over." To FF13's credit, its NOT SMT, so this wasn't as much of a pain as it could have been. Reasons?
-FF13 lacks SMT's bullshit hax factor is the big one. Enemies don't ambush you (but you can do it to them), so you always have time to prepare, and there's little randomness in the way of Crits and such.
-FF13 lacks Instant Death for almost the entire game; what Instant Death there is has a sad hit rate, and you get ID Blockers before its even around. To branch from that, one of the enemies who uses Instant Death does so only after so many turns, which gives you plenty of time to either kill them first, or have your Sentinel bait them out (unless your Sentinel is the Leader.)
-Furthermore, FF13 lacks Auto-loss status like Petrify and what not; while it makes the choices of status enemies can hurl at you less varied, it was probably the wiser decision cause dying to an enemy just petrifying you before you could get your Sentinel to bait them out = argh.
-Also, FF13 lets you change your leader after a point, so you don't have to worry about, say, Lightning's "low" HP being a factor, as you can put Sazh or whoever in that place instead, and put their better HP as your limiter.
-Game also has a nice "Retry" option setting you right outside the fight you lost, and if its a plot scene between it scene skip exists (even nice enough to give you access to the game's Menu that you didn't have before...why they didn't do this to begin wtih I don't know), so dying doesn't really have any penalties, so you can just keep trying until something works; contrast this to many other tough RPGs where its die -> START BACK AT SAVE POINT! Naturally, a SMART game (which most FFs are) have a save point right near the boss, so that's not a big deal, or games like Wild ARMs have their own limited continue methods...SMTs do not have this and are such "UGH" whenever you die as a result.
Its still an annoying Gameplay mechanic outside of SRPGs or games like VP that gave you Grace Periods, but FF13 did handle it much better than things like Persona 4, or branching from away from SMT, Okage, games where you could lose the Main Character and there's NOTHING you could do about it, and you had like a bajillion ways to revive him too.
The Dungeon Crawling did get a little tedious but the linearity actually helped I felt. People tend to forget that many jRPGs have this scenario, which FF13 universally avoids pretty much the entire time (sans that one tower):
Come to a fork in the road, which way do you take? One way leads to a locked down, often that being the more obvious route, the other leads to nothing but a switch, down an insignificant part of the dungeon, just to open that one door.
Basically, a useless thing to inflate the length of the dungeon. FF13 said "bollocks to aspects that deserve to be kept in Survival Horrors!" and just gives us straightforward, linear dungeons. It still gives you some exploration merit as checking that little protrusion off the path can yield a chest, no matter how slight it might seem; just this kind of exploration takes all of an extra 20 seconds instead of a good 5 minute derailing. The lack of Random Encounters (in favor of the "You can see enemies on the screen" thing) certainly helped the flow of things.
And personally, I LIKED Gran Pulse's first section; while the navigating was annoying, just the scope and atmosphere really put FF13's graphics to work (I played the 360 version mind, so I can only imagine what's it like on the PS3.) It was a lot like FF10's Calm Lands, only bigger, prettier and felt like there was more to do.
The Crystagrim (SP?) system was a interesting extension of SPhere Grid, and even handled in a way to make "Grind = Win!" not work by actually limiting your levels based on story. The game actually forced you to figure out the battle system and learn how to do strategy to at least some degree, which I support. The game was even appropriately difficult the entire way through I felt; pretty easy early on, but gets gradually harder, and by the end, you go in expecting at least competent fights from everything, but nothing was frustratingly annoying (though, there were enemies that I really hated fighting if only cause setting up to kill them could take a while, and then the actual killing of them took a while too. Sanctum Templars stand out to me for example.)
Paradigm was also cool system...actually, the whole gameplay can be summed up as a branch of FF10's Development with a better handled version of FFX-2 and XS2 spliced together, in a way that meshes well together. Basically, FF13 succeeded pretty darn well in gameplay, and unlike FF12 where it mostly kind of clicked and I can't fathom why, FF13's actually feels objectively well made.
Also, I must say this; whoever says FF13 is a grind fest needs to be punched. I didn't grind at all, barring one moment where it was to get enough CP for Vanille to learn Death, but that amounted to all of ONE EXTRA NODE. On the flipside, I did very few optional missions (all of like 3?), and didn't really run into any trouble that couldn't be fixed either by approaching the fight differently, or just re-adjusting my team cause the one I was using was unsuited (or alternatively, they were freaks like Behemoth Kings on Gran Pulse which are basically "DON'T FIGHT THEM UNLESS YOU HAVE THE AMBUSH OR ARE IN A 3 WAY!") I never had to resort to "GRIND MOAR!!!"
Outside of being stubborn on some fights like Behemoth Kings early, the only boss fights that really were hard for me were the first Proud Clad and first Orphan fight, and that's cause both of them took on a style meant to counter "Stagger -> WIN!", at least if you go immediately for it. I might have had under-developed weapons relative to others, but I could only take off about half health in both fights with a stagger. Staggering them means they start whipping out nasty things; I know this is definitely the case. Why?
-Proud Clad, when I stagged it, once it broke free, it's ALWAYS use this big healing move that buffed it and spammed high powered moves that'd overwhelm me even in Sentinel. When I fought it by just chipping at it with Commando (and some Ravager hits early on to boost Chain Gauge), and just going with Medic/Sentinel (rebuffing with Synergist) defensive strategies, staggering it at the end to take off the last bit of HP, it never did that.
-Orphan Fight #1 I kept having problems with (one time wasn't my fault though; batteries ran out of controller, FF13 unlike MOST games doesn't auto pause when that happens, and it happened at a delicate time and I couldn't grba the other controller fast enough and shift to my defensive Paradigm...yeah...), figured it was an HP Trigger...so I decided to try and blast past most of his HP just before the trigger is hit...after failing a few times cause of his BIG MT GRAVITY + CHAIN GAUGE TO 0% move being timed at worst possible moments, I started to notice...he wasn't changing his strategy much beyond a few new moves. Like, yeah the annoying but not-costly status move was used, but he never did his BIG MT DAMAGE MOVE OF "USE SENTINEL OR DIE", nor did he do the Instant Death move. I figured out eventually that he was a stagger related boss. Sure enough, he started using a few new tricks at really low health after being staggered...never the MT damage move; I'm thinking that he uses that after a Summon?
The boss fights did get a little overboard on HP, but...honestly, 6.8 Million HP sounds more intimidating than it really is. You rip through HP really damned fast once your offense gets going, so the bosses actually kind of needed HP That high to not get curbstomped entirely; they may have gone a little overboard, but yeah, it didn't feel too horrible. Contrast this to SO4's Final Boss who has 8 Million HP, stacked onto an idiotic defensive gimmick, right after a boss and a potential boss rush, and he's constantly attacking you thus making your offense lower...ugh. FF13, yes, your offense is limited cause you have to heal, use Sentinel, etc., but generally you can often keep someone on Commando or Ravager a majority of the time, and at least get SOME damage in, so the fight never feels like you're not going anywhere (though the psychological BoF1 Late Game Boss effects do start kicking in!)
Again, I have to mention this; I did very little that was optional on Gran Pulse. Only about 3 missions, and the extra encounters done for fixing that Robot Dog...well, and a few minor extra fights in the Tower cause I kind of lost track of what I was doing, but honestly, I rarely found a moment where I'd hit my Crystarium limit and have all this excess CP, or when I did, it was often right before the Crystarium boost was up. I also stayed pretty much entirely to the main 3 Roles the characters have, thinking about some minor expanding early on (gained like one or two levels in a few characters on one role, then realized it really wasn't worth it cause sticking to the main roles led to better Abilities and MUCH better stat boosts.)
Summons were also nice; its what FF12's SHOULD have been, but weren't. Its nice how summons are starting to act different than spells and actually exist alongside you now, only FF13 makes them actually cool Limit Break style things instead of total novelties that suck like FF12, or Overpowered Freaks of Nature like FF10. I didn't use them much, mind, cause I was conservative on TP, but just using one every now and then to nukify things was fun.
The forced PC sections for the first like 70% of the game? Well, it was annoying not being able to use some characters, and how you only had 2 characters for a while in a game that really promotes team work can get grating, but...the game was balanced well enough around this...at least for Lightning/Hope. Those two worked well together, such that Hope does things that keeps Lightning alive, Lightning just bitch slaps things til they die.
Sazh and Vanille, meanwhile? DId not really work well. Sazh's offense is much worse than Lightning's, you basically had to stack their Synergist and Saboteur abilities, then rely on a worse PC synergy (didn't help that Lightning gets her 4th ATB gauge early, while neither Sazh nor Vanille get theirs until much later.) The enemies really felt more durable with Sazh and Vanille, contrast to Lightning/Hope where it was mostly just "SMASH."
To FF13's credit? It avoided being retarded and forcing SOLO PC SECTIONS in a game like this. Solo PC sections would be the single most assholish thing in a game like this. Yes, there were a few moments early on with Snow where it was solo, but they were really short lived (or in the case of Chapter 2, before the game really had much of a battle system beyond "Hit things, they die"), and don't really count.
Having 2 PCs is at least enough to make SOME use of the battle system, for all that the game only really shows its colors with 3, which it takes a while to get back to.
I think I've talked enough about Gameplay, but yeah, that's definitely FF13's best trait, ignoring the whole "Game is pretty!" aspect. It was fun pretty much the entire way through, and well handled and balanced. Now, onto other things!
Music...my friend said the game was disappointing here. For the most part...I agree. I liked the Battle Theme, the game's main theme had a nice melody and the versions on Gran Pulse and that forest where Hope/Lightning were I liked, and Cocoon De Chocobo...Cocoon De Chocobo <.<. Otherwise? Songs all kind of meshed together.
Plot...well...
The story itself at its core really isn't so bad. Kind of liked it, and what was going on. I also liked how FF13 avoids the usual jRPG problem of "WE MUST KEEP EVERYTHING MAIN CHARACTER-CENTRIC!", remembering that FF6 and FF9 actually benefited by showing the game from multiple perspectives, diverting attention away from the main...heck, even FF8 had some benefit from this, just they sort of did NOTHING with the parts that diverted from Squall other than be filler. You know, something that pretty much ALL OTHER FORMS OF MEDIA do at some point? I'll let FF10 get away with it cause the whole "Tidus is telling the entire story" sort of makes it hard to divert attention from him. Ok, so Vanille tells FF13's story, but she's more just speaking for the cast as a whole. Basically, the difference between the two is Tidus was saying more "I", where as Vanille was more "We", so diverting attention away from Vanille was somewhat easier.
ANYWAY, what hurts FF13's story, however, is its pacing. At first, not much happens after a point...but once Snow rejoins after quite a while, the plot suddenly starts to feel rushed. Note that the GAME isn't rushed, as the gameplay feels reasonably paced and the length isn't too bad, but in terms of things going on, yeah, definitely poorly paced. It tried to cram most of the important plot elements of the story into the last 15 hours or so. The character work suffered as well; I don't mind the direction the characters took for development, or really the characters in and of themselves, but their development I found a little unbelievable and rushed. One moment that stands out to me was with Lightning and Hope's relationship; Lightning went too quickly from "Hope, you're useless and just slowing me down" to "HOPE!? ARE YOU ALRIGHT!? I was so worried!", Suddenly-Is-Like-an-Older-Sister-to-Hope scenario. Snow's development COULD have worked well, but after his HEROIC!!!! re-entrance, they rush the whole "Forced to admit weakness, then decide how to deal with it!" thing in a manner of like 3 scenes.
Honestly, felt like FF13's story may have been better if it was split across like 3 long movies or an entire drama series, where they could apply the pacing somewhat better, rather than be forced to find a perfect balance between gameplay, writing, plot, etc. Again, FF13's story in and of itself, I have no problems with, but the execution could have been much better.
Its a lot better than FF12 in this regard, mind, cause at least FF13 is consistent about having a plot. While the pacing jumps from "not much happens" to "A LOT HAPPENS QUICKLY!", at least the game continues to have plot scenes throughout, so you know there's a story going on. FF12, after Raithwall, you kind of reach a point of doing a lot of side stuff and dungeons and then go "Wait, right, there's a plot isn't there? What am I suppose to be doing again? Did I ever get that sword? Oh, right, its in my inventory...wait, what was I suppose to do with that again?" and you'd get lost if FF12 wasn't nice enough to have an indicator of where to go next every time you checked your map. FF13, outside of getting REALLY into doing stuff in Gran Pulse, you constantly knew there was plot going on. Now, if you could KEEP TRACK OF FF13's plot, that's a different story, cause once it gets going, it really moves fast and you kind of forget stuff. To FF13's credit, it has the Datalog, and a quick summary of things that just happened when you load the game, so just referencing quick terms and characters to remind yourself in case you forgot helped keep things coherent.
(Oh, right, FF13 deserves props for a compass that always points you in the direction of your destination to finish the dungeon as well, for that matter; that way, for the rare instance of a genuine fork, you KNEW you were going the wrong way, or alternatively, in case you turned around (like to fight a random from behind or something), it made it easier to know which was the right way to go and which was you backtracking like a moron.)
But regardless, there is one part of the plot that got to me: The ending. Look, ok, I can take a rushed plot, and then having arbitrary scenes just for random explosions and fun shit like the beginning of Chapter 12, which while completely pointless, it had fun eye candy and thus was entertaining...there was no excuse for an ending like that. They basically just said "um...shit...where do we go from here?" The game suddenly contradicts itself with the team's actions on Orphan, where they're all like "WE MUST PROTECT ORPHAN CAUSE THAT WILL FUCK WITH THE FAL'CIE PLANS!" and then Orphan appears...and they attack it instantly? Did I miss something here? Aren't they doing the EXACT OPPOSITE of what they've been saying they'll do since the beginning of Chapter 12? Following that, felt like they had no clue what they wanted to do, cause just having a simple "And there was much rejoicing!" ending wasn't good, NO! WE MUST BE EPIC! How can we be EPIC!??!?!
...TRAINWRECK THE DAMN THING! Lets give Vanille and Fang arbitrary absurd plot powers that we only loosely hinted at, force Fang to suddenly do something she KNOWS is horribly wrong, falling for "Idiot Good Guy Syndrome" of "Clearly saving one person is worth sacrificing the entire fucking world and ALL YOUR OTHER FRIENDS over" and sort of handwaving everything bad that was going on as "Oh, just Fal'Cie fucking with our minds; its an illusion, lets ignore and KICK ORPHAN'S ASS!" After that? MOAR EXPLOSIONS!!!! PLOT BULLSHIT! DEUS EX MACHINA!!! ...and they all lived happily ever after, except Vanille and Fang...oh, wait, no, they're not dead, just asleep, apparently completely nude, in crystal form, but that's cool, cause Fang is totally a lesbian, and there's nothing hinting that Vanille is not either. Just give them about 500 years and they'll wake up nice and happy!!!!
...seriously, fuck you ending. No, its not XS3 level horrible offensiveness, but it left a sour taste in my mouth, and was a poor way to end the game on after it had a pretty strong going thus far (if mostly for gameplay.) If the game just had a generic ending, I'd go "meh, anticlimactic, but whatever." The Shit the ending pulled was basically just...ugh. I don't think its enough for me to dock a point from the game, but it was just bad. SO3 had a similar case, only it had better writing before hand (I LIKED SO3's big spoiler, thank you very much), and it was more just "*Facepalm* *Headdesk* *facepalm again*"philosphical bullshit rather than "TOTAL TRAINWRECK! But it has EXPLOSIONS! Everyone likes that!?!"
FF13's little "Characters speak while running through dungeons" thing was a nice touch to help give them a little more personality, and some extra character interaction at least; did make me wish they'd take more advantage of it, and add a little bit more "useless" conversations for flavoring. I was expecting more after the fun early game stuff, but eh, I suppose some interaction is better than none.
Now for characters...first off, some NPC stuff.
FF13 had a bunch of worthless NPCs I felt. Yeah, Snow has his Fujin and Raijin equivalents with the "2 other guys" but...they exist for such a short period of time. Rosch for example was very obvious what they were aiming at, and could have been interesting, as we're just having a guy whose fighting for what he believes is best, and even knowing its corrupt and flawed, is willing to accept the "Ends justify the means" thing, but then he...disappears for a while, finally reappearing and you go "Oh, right, there was that General of PSICOM guy."
Cid Raines I thought wasn't half bad for what he was though, and actually felt that he really was stuck in a Catch 22 scenario, cause no matter WHAT he did, he was screwed, and the end result was something he wasn't going to be satisfied with. Though, did they really need to make his battle form a combination of Seymour and Sephiroth in design? I mean...seriously?
Barthandelus/Dysley is a pretty laughable villain. EVIL POPE!!! ...we certainly haven't seen THAT before. Basically just a "Ha, I've been manipulating you guys from the start!" except all he's really been doing is twiddling his thumbs, and hoping things fall into place, then mocking the team at inopportune times. Come on, I know you can make a more intriguing villain than that. Or were they that desperate to take an FF6 Esper-type character and say "IF Espers were FF6's villains, they'd be kind of like this guy!" ...except I highly doubt they'd be THIS lame. I guess the game did explain why he couldn't just go through with his plans on his own well enough by basically saying "Fal'Cie lack total free-will; they can only act according to their purpose" hence the creation of l'Cie. I guess its a cheap explanation, but eh, I'll go with it, mostly cause a more elaborate one often leads to confusion and hate.
As far PCs go...
Lightning: Female Protagonist, yay! Anyway, kind of liked her overall. She was human, so while rational, she actually showed emotion and did things that would say "No, she's not perfect." And unlike many "Female Soldier" types, while she was strong and "tough as nails", she definitely didn't mind showing vulnerability, just she herself wasn't very thin skinned to begin with. She could have been really good if not for, well, you know, FF13 writing. To her credit, she's stylish, and looked bad ass in battle, and has a Gunblade that's actually semi-logical unlike Squall's. I will give her credit for actually coming off as a leader, despite never being officially declared one like Cloud or Squall were; heck, there were times Cloud didn't really feel like a Leader, more just "Guy who was there." Lightning felt like the one actually calling the shots and keeping things in line, even was the one talking down the final boss despite how Fang and Vanille had the whole BIG PLOT NONSENSE SHENANIGANS before hand and had more plot relation to it.
IN BATTLE!? Best overall offensive PC; while not best at Magic or Physicals, she was rather good at both, allowing her to never really be walled. In addition, she made a decent Ravager, and Army of ONe was really quite excellent at building the Chain Gauge later on. Her HP could use a little work, but beyond early game, never felt quite low enough to make her a hinderance, even as Party Leader. She was often my Commando mostly cause she could take advantage of all forms of damage buffing (where as Fang loses a lot of damage if forced to go Magical, for example.) Having Medic as well allowed for some flexibility, letting someone like Hope or Vanille go to a support class while Lightning kept the team alive. Also, she had some pretty good weapons; Blazfire Sabre was a good balanced damage weapon, a weapon that boosts Ressurection, and she had a weapon that boosts Staggering potential as well as one with ATB Gauge helping. Nice flexibility and what not.
...really, Lightning reminded me of Terra, in terms of gameplay, only more balanced relative to her cast. She was good at just about everything that wasn't being support, but never quite STAND OUT at it beyond a few minor segments. Well, that and she's missing Terra's absurd equipment selection, for all that Lightning has a good draw on weapons (FF13 has no armors, just universal accessories, though accessories can have unique effects on PCs to be fair.)
Sazh: TOKEN STEREOTYPE BLACK GUY. Comic Relief, with some decent serious stuff. Actually, while I slam FF13 for rushing stuff, Sazh was probably pulled off about as well as you could get, as things felt appropriately timed, and there wasn't much more you could do with someone like him. Also, he has a Frocobo. I do want to note that no, Sazh is NOT in running for a Protagonist. He has his reasons for being there, yeah, but the son thing stops mattering pretty damn fast, and that's really just his motivation. This is contrast to Lightning/Snow's motivation based off Serah and how it keeps constantly getting brought up even when its not important, and we still see more of Serah in flashbacks, or Fang and Vanille's plot which...well, yeah. Mind you, Sazh is still more important than Hope, cause at least Dajh was a significant character unlike Hope's Mom, who was really just a catalyst at best.
IN BATTLE!? Felt like Lightning, having some buffs in favor of...worse everything else barring HP (which without Sentinel, didn't feel to handy), and no healing. Really losing Trade. offensive Buffs are cool, but honestly, they sometimes take a little too long to get going, and defensive ones are far handier considering enemies are dangerous. Also, his offensive stats were sad; I don't mean "Lightning's were better." What I mean is, specialists like Fang and Hope were actually beaten by Lightning at some points in their main stat, though eventually got a firm lead that Lightning never caught up too, but after that, Lightning was still able to keep up with them, and fill in those holes in offense well enough. Sazh? Not so much; really, the only reason to use him was for Haste, and Bravery/Faith...I suppose Vigilance is good, but never found it too necessary, and when Hope learns Haste, Bravery and Faith, Vigilance is quite literally the only thing Sazh has going for him, outside of the HP. And I don't mean Sazh's damage wasn't a little low; he was clearly game worst in offensive stats. Sazh was just breaking 800 in Attack (with like 700~ in Magic), when Lightning was already well into 4 digits in both stats, while Fang, Vanille, Snow and Hope were well into the 4 digits with their main stat (often higher than what Lightning had...well, I think Snow may have had lower Attack.)
So...in the end, Sazh felt like LVP. Even for the brief stint when he's finally available and is the only one with Haste, it wasn't enough to justify him. Pretty sad too, as he's a pretty awesome character.
Snow: Starts the game off annoying and a whiner and...to be frank? That was perfect for him. Why? Cause I really felt like the whole point of Snow was meant to piss you off cause he's so obnoxious and full of himself early on, and he's suppose to earn your respect as the game goes on by slowly diverging away from this and basically rationalizing it up. And honestly? He did exactly that. Snow I view in two ways; one is "A different take on Locke", the other is "Seifer that you're suppose to eventually warm up to cause he stops being a fucking moron." Both fit in their different ways; Snow's definitely got the FAILURE KNIGHT syndrome over his lost loved one that drives him that Locke has, ultimately learning to move on (though never forgetting about Serah), while the Seifer things comes from this obsession of his dreams and goals that he has and being a stuck up asstard, ultimately learning to lighten up, and try to do things for the team rather than obsess over himself. By the end, he worked well as the kind of guy whose just keeping the team on track; Lightning's calling the shots, but Snow's there to remind everyone what they're fighting for, and to keep spirits up, and to have that kind of weird optimism a team needs (his intro into Chapter 12 was just fun, for example, with the whole "And the hero saves the day!" followed by the whole people seeing his brand then going "...oh, whoops, probably should cover that up.") So yeah, I ended up liking Snow in the end, but I won't deny there was a lot more that could have been done with him. Again, FF13's character's and the direction of their development, etc. is fine, its just the execution that isn't.
IN BATTLE!? Snow is bar none the best Sentinel; a kick ass HP Score, and...really, that's all you need to be a good Sentinel. He makes a good Commando, and could fill the role of Ravager. Also, he got nice defensive weapons to help make the whole Sentinel thing work well. I really can't stress how useful Sentinel is for survival, so having this was nice, as he was one of two PCs that had it. He had more HP than Sazh too, by a significant amount I wanna say, and cause of Sentinel, he actually felt like he was making use of it. Basically, he was Lightning, shoving the Magic Stat into the HP (though keeping Magic JUST high enough that he doesn't totally fail at Ravager), and had Sentinel instead of Medic. Overall losing trade, but he's someone I often ended up using.
Hope: Little whiny brat who becomes TEAM CHEER LEADER end game. Seriously, his emo phase got annoying; I can understand WHY he was in it, but he took the "I HATE YOU SNOW!" thing too far. The whole Father relationship thing was stupid too (though I will admit his father was a pretty decent fellow, just...wow, he needed more screen time. Or at least appear in the god damn ending.) Also, no, he is NOT the main. Hope was a total plot device, and became completely useless after Palumpolum. It felt like there was more focus on him than the others cause Hope is the single most dynamic character in the game, so the changes were more obvious, but he really didn't contribute much. Just helped Snow and Lightning develop a little, and was basically just a 6th PC.
IN BATTLE? Best Ravager *AND* Synergist in the game, and has Medic to boot so he can run the role of healing if need be, though gets Raise a little later than I'd like. Still, he was pretty much exactly what I needed in a support PC, ESPECIALLY after he gets offensive boosting spells; Protect/Shell are more important than Bravery/Faith, so him getting those early contrast to Sazh stands out, and he was good at Crowd Control due to that awesome magic stat combined with Ravager spells nailing weaknesses. He did have one really notable flaw though; the HP. Its really bad. Using Hope without a Sentinel at some point is really suicidal. At the same time, however, Hope + Sentinel makes your team nigh unkillable, so yeah, not only does a Sentinel cover Hope's flaws, it compounds and actually compliments the buffs beautifally making Hope even better. Ended up being in my team constantly as a result.
Vanille: Starts the game being nothing more than a Genki...like, one who is OVERLY happy. I really can't stress this; she's smiling the entire damn time, even when she should get upset. Then we learn about her past, and suddenly she goes from "token Genki" to "DEUS EX MACHINA CHARACTER OF MASSIVE IMPORTANCE!" Pity its not really focused on much until Chapter 11 where you end up on Gran Pulse, where they blow this stuff out of proportion. This is why I can't really respect her as a main, just merely a "necessary supporting character" like, say, Aerith in FF7 (Aerith wasn't even the female lead of FF7 (Tifa was), but its hard to deny that she's important and the plot wouldn't work without her; clear example of an Important Supporting Character, but still one nonetheless.) Well, she IS the narrator, but she really feels like an odd choice of one until very late where finally she starts gaining some importance. Also, after you get off Gran Pulse she...takes backseat again until they pull off Operation: TRAIN WRECK to force Vanille to be important again. In any event, I can't say I was very fond of her cause once her plot is revealed, she becomes totally bipolar, and the whole PLOT BACKSTORY thing felt a bit redundant with Fang around. I know, the use of two characters was there for some better character interaction, but FF13 really didn't emphasize that enough, and it more just came off as "The two are lesbian lovers!" Oh yeah, her accent is also unnatural and inconsistent, so it made it hard for me to take her seriously even later on.
IN BATTLE? Deprotect, Deshell, and Poison were all things I found useful (yes, I found FF13 Poison useful; it actually does significant damage, you just don't notice it cause its gradual.) Also made a decent Ravager, and unlike Hope, had an actual HP score (it was Lightning-esque), so she could get away without using Sentinel a little better. Deprotect/Deshell, despite not being perfect and not working on everything (but it works on A LOT) I found more useful than Bravery of Faith. A few reasons would be because they do damage, which while the damage sucks, its useful for Chain Gauge purposes (either adding too it, or just keeping the gauge built up), and the usual "A debuff on the enemy is like a buff for the entire team!" factor. Lastly, had Medic too, so yeah, good healer. Didn't use her a lot, but she was fine when I did.
Fang: The "badass" female who kicks things asses and is MYSTERIOUS!!! Also has Deus Ex Machina related nonsense, and is very blatantly a lesbian (I'm sorry, but with lines like "I'd do anything, so long as she's safe!" said with such passion, its hard to take Fang as anything BUT that. And unlike Lightning's relationship with Hope which felt more like a "I'll protect you, don't worry!" and nothing more, hence the Big Sister vibes, it felt like she genuinely wanted to just make out with Vanille at any given moment.) Now, what's the problem with her being the main? I dunno, I have a problem with introducing the main character when over 50% of the game is done, and its suddenly all "SHE'S UBER IMPORTANT!" Basically, you know Xenosaga Jr.? Yeah, XS2 he's the lead, but XS1, its more like he's just super important, but Shion's still the main. Fang is very much that; I actually felt she was more significant than Vanille (despite Vanille having he Serah thing), cause Fang was doing shit, and didn't require the Narrator thing to say "Oh, yeah, she's important." Though, Fang is completely responsible for the ending nonsense; seriously, what the fuck? You given into the villain's demands that easily? When you KNOW that nothing good is going to come of it and that Vanille is likely GOING TO DIE AS A RESULT OF YOUR SHIT ANYWAY? ARGH!!!! FUCK YOU FF13'S ENDING! On the plus side, she gets Bahamut as an Eidolon, which is cool points in my book.
(Sorry about the Main Character Tangents, but I feel people are too easily to label characters as mains when there's problems like "uh, Fang doesn't exist for a large part of the story" and people forgetting you CAN be important without being the main. Again, XS1 Jr. is a very good example of this.)
IN BATTLE!? Fang was some sort of hybrid of Snow, Lightning and Vanille. She has Saboteur though it was different than Vanille's at first (Slow is very useful, mind), she felt like she could replace Lightning as a Commando (while Snow's attack wasn't as good, he felt...I dunno...clunkier than Lightning?), and had Sentinel. Thing is, she didn't obsolete any of them; all 3 had Ravager, Snow had oodles more HP than her, and both Vanille and Lightning had Medic. So what is she in the end? Just a plain vanilla good PC! Ended up using her as my 3rd with Hope and Lightning; was using Snow for a while, but wanted to take advantage of Saboteur, so it was either "Drop Hope, use Vanille" which means I lose Synergist, so it was between Lightning and Snow...felt a second Medic > second Sentinel (for all that a second Sentinel doesn't hurt for flexibility), and Lightning's ability to adapt to whatever damage type available with minimal losses, in addition to Army of One's absurd chain building, felt more useful than Snow's HP. Fang made a good enough Sentinel, if inferior to Snow, but could cover other niches and...yeah. Also, she was obviously suppose to be the game's Dragoon; I mean...dresses in Blue (though she looked almost like a skanky "bad-girl" Rinoa in design...NOMURA!!!!!!!!!), wields a lance, rides a dragon, unique attack is called "Highwind"...ok, I'll shut up.
So...uh...guess that's the end of the rant <_<? Uh, yeah. Anyway, despite the general lackluster aspects of writing and what not, I still enjoyed the game a lot. 8/10 to me; there were definite places for improvements even in the gameplay, and it has its flaws, but the flaws aren't too major to stop it from being a genuinely good game. It was certainly nice to play something that I actually had fun doing (despite how Real Life kept saying "No, stop playing it!" for all the various reasons...god damned reality, I hate you sometimes!), unlike Wizard of Oz where it didn't really do anything innately wrong, just sort of failed to go above the raw basics and ended up being boring; no, FF13 kept the gameplay engaging and kept making new enemies with gimmicks etc. So yeah, 8/10, even though I JUST SAID THAT! MWAHAHA!
(Yes, I purposely avoided talking about the DL, cause frankly, when I play a game, the first thing that comes to mind isn't "How good is this character in the DL!?" I learned long ago that playing games for the DL is a bad thing, and you should just completely FORGET about the DL while playing the game, instead enjoy the game for its actual merits, not factoring in "OOOH! THIS CHARACTER WILL BE AWESOME IN THE DL!")
