FF13 - Finished! Final time around 50 hours, final levels around... everyone very close to finishing their primary grids, just a bit short. My main attacker (Fang) had a high-level tier 2 weapon, everyone else had maxed L1s, and I had accessories generally between Level 6 and 11 on the first tier I had them available in. Final team was Fang (leader), Lightning, and Hope.
Already had a big part of the rant so far, so let's wrap things up, shall we? FF13 is certainly an excellent overall game, and slides quite nicely as my new third-favourite game in the series (after I so briefly promoted FF5 to this honour!).
Story-wise... unquestionably, the game comes off the rails a bit towards the end. This is a shame, because I think if the game had been able to keep up the really good stuff it did in Chapter 1-9 it would have been an easy 10/10. The first half of the game has, as I've mentioned, some top-notch character work, and a slew of really good scenes as they deal with stress and come to realisations. Plotwise I think this part of the game is excellently paced and generally have no major beefs with it. Highlights, though...
-I do really like the cocoon four, as I have mentioned before. Snow is a great parody but also at times a genuinely interesting character. Hope is a great portrayal of a confused and angry teenager. Lightning and Sazh both have stories that clicked for me, and are fun personalities.
-The scene where Snow's facade cracks he breaks down about the deaths his actions have caused is great.
-I also liked most of the Hope/Snow stuff surrounding this. Loved how Snow kept setting Hope off until the kid snapped. Loved that Hope then used his ravager powers in plot, loved the -emotion- of the scene in general. Actually in general, I think chapter 7 was my favourite part of the game plotwise.
-I enjoyed how Sazh wrestled with the idea of turning himself in for Dajh. Leading up to that, I liked how Sazh's plot connected with the rest, and how his motivation explained his until-then cryptic remarks about how he hated being an enemy of Cocoon (and hence Dajh) so very much.
-Lightning's development was very solid. Sure, she's fun opposite Sazh at the start, but there was some excellent stuff with Hope: how her need to use anger to fuel her survival contrasts with his; how by setting the kid on an unsympathetic, violent path she realises her own flaws and then tries to save the boy.
You'll notice I say less good things about Vanille and Fang relatively; I do regard them as the weaker members of the cast but I don't dislike them; Vanille in particular by far my favourite of the "energetic, happy young woman" trope Final Fantasy so loves (though at 19, may be too old for the trope anyway?) because of the delicious darkness that lurks behind that happiness. Fang is more just generically likable though certainly in no danger of being a Mary Sue. Hard to say much more definite there though, there isn't enough really good solid character scenes for her.
Once you hit chapter 10 and especially 11, though, it feels like they just ran out of budget for scenes, since there are far fewer of them, and many feel somewhat poorly explained in terms of what is going on. There's still some good plot stuff there but the narrative doesn't always do a good job of letting it unfold. I don't mind having to think a story through and talk it over with people (something I've already done a fair bit of) but FF13 obviously goes a bit far here and could certainly have stood to clarify things. It reminds me of Xenogears a fair bit in its latter stages, which means some of it is unsatisfying and there are plenty of gaps and plot holes, even if the overarching plot is generally a satisfying one. FF13 is probably a bit more frustrating due to the loss of character work though, which was overall better than Xenogears' in their respective first halves.
Specific complaints... I definitely felt that the Pulse setting was underused, especially for Vanille and Fang's development. Both of them feel like they were supposed to get more scenes than they did. One moment, Vanille reveals she became Ragnarok! Okay, this is kind of a big deal! Pretty shortly thereafter, this turns around and is a lie. This could have been awesome with more buildup (like Vanille's previous lie about becoming a l'Cie along with the rest), but as is, it just doesn't work as well as it should. Instead chapter 11 feels very empty with Taejin's Tower in particular being a plotless hard-to-swallow mess of a roadblock.
Chapter 12 in general is probably my least favourite. The PCs no longer really debate their course of action at this point, which is a real shame since there are several, very different avenues open to them, and the conflict with Rosch (dude you were dead) definitely fell flat. In general, this part of the game continued my simply wanting more out of the game's plot and its previously fun character interactions. There's just so little beyond what is minimally necessary.
On the other hand, there's still certainly some good stuff lategame. Perhaps my favourite part is Dysley's transformation into a magnificent troll. I didn't care for him initially, but ultimately he ended up as a very solid villain. Has several great "just as planned" moments towards the end. "You guys go to Orphan's Cradle to stop the cavalry... ahaha just kidding, now you're trapped here! Also I made them all zombies because I'm a jerk." "Okay guys now I'll kill you since you obviously won't complete your focus... ahaha just kidding I was Orphan all along you fools have triggered DESTRUCTION". In general he did a good job of showing up and taunting the hell out of the PCs, and unlike most villains who do that it actually MADE SENSE for his plans.
I also liked the disconnect between his motives actually being quite noble (if, uh, involving a lot of death, but they're still pretty noble the way Luc's or Kato's are) and him being a complete pile of shit on a personal level, treating individual human life as refuse and making the PCs' lives a complete misery. That feels like a disconnect you usually don't see to often?
It's a shame the rest of the villain cast is basically worthless. I liked both PSICOM colonels initially, funnily enough, but Rosch is worthless after he randomly comes back from the dead, and Jihl gets an unceremonious exit before she can really make good on some of her fun potential. Oh, there's Cid I guess, if you can even consider him a villain. He's fine in his minor role, although his C12 resurrection-then-death is... bizarre. If another respectable trolling moment for Dysley.
I quite liked the ENDING stylistically (using Ragnarok's powers to save lives instead of destroy them is very fitting with the game's theme) although it's a bit unclear as to when the PCs came up with this plan so it could have been a better execution, to say the least. PCs just needed to talk so much more endgame! It is frustrating! However, I thought some of the scenes in the middle of the final battle were a bit of a mess; I'm still not quite certain what they were shooting for between the two Orphan fights. I like to think I'm pretty open-minded for plot interpretations but it's really hard to explain what happens there in the context of the characters and surounding events. It's either an extremely weird mindfuck (which... I wouldn't put past the game, but I'm not especially sold on it) or seems irreconcilable with the scenes both before and after. Oh well. If anyone has an explanation for it I may have missed I would like to hear it, but I'd be surprised if there's one that isn't some level of writing fail.
Gameplaywise, on the other hand, it really only gets better as it goes along. This game's randoms are just so much fun, they keep you on your toes throughout and going for those 5-stars are just so much fun. I actually had much more trouble with the better randoms (Humbaba, Adamanchelid, Dagonite packs, Wladislaus, never mind the stuff you're obviously not meant to fight in chapter 11) than any bosses who I generally felt were not too bad - in particular, no form of the main villain and/or final boss gave me much trouble. I never had multiple resets on any boss fight besides some of the eidolons (which always felt like walking a tightrope to beat, good balance there) but had several multi-reset fights with (individual) better randoms! I could probably have avoided most of this with a more defensive approach but fuck that, that's no fun and the game even rewards my efficiency so yeah.
I may have lied earlier; the way FF13 rewards good play may mean it does play to all my biases after all. Sure, CTB will always be my one true love as far as traditional RPGs go... but damned if FF13 doesn't craft easily the best realtime RPG battle system ever. This is like what every ARPG and ATB game wanted to be. It requires (at least on the default battle speed) a furious pace of thinking out your actions and strategies and the main reason you can't control anyone is you don't have TIME, but you do a great job of controlling them indirectly. I still enjoyed having control of my Saboteur because I felt that afforded me the greatest number of tactical options ("e.g. fuck you guys, YOU are getting Fogged). Synergist controlling would be my next pick (and I did switch to Sazh leader for a few fights) but Hope's role as most fragile PC made this a little less appealing.
The crystarium offers more choice than the sphere grid due to multiple role trees (which is good), and has a cap on grinding (which... appeals to me, but I'm not sure it's objectively good design for those who like grinding). On the other hand I dislike how you can't choose which nodes to get along a certain path. Probably not a big deal, just ruins some potentially fun builds on replays/challenge playthroughs. Also advancing it is definitely slower than it had to be.
The game had several gameplay mechanics which I didn't really care for (eidolons felt like a bit of a mess since I never bothered to grasp what all their different attacks did; -sols I feel are kinda degenerate pseudo-gameplay skip options though at least you can only pull them out rarely due to availability. Hilariously the game apparently gives you more if you suck at it! Which... makes a lot of sense). Fortunately these are both pretty easy to ignore. The game has a crafting system which seemed a little obtuse at points but overall proved an okay diversion I guess. Not really a fan of these but at least I was able to get a handle on this one eventually. It felt very cluttered though I understand the reason for doing this (the beasties you fight drop lots of different parts).
Might as well talk about the PCs in-game!
Lightning - She's pretty solid. Definitely goes downhill a bit towards the end as her Medic becomes much more of a "well it can kinda help sometimes" instead of being a bona fide healer; there's little doubt to me that you want one of Hope or Vanille as such. She always plays her niche of doing any type of offence well. Early on this is just amazing as she actually has comparable attack in both to the specialists, but later on she's clearly beaten. I did end up using her as my third most important PC just to play a bit of a backup role once Sazh dropped out of the party, though on reflection Snow may have worked just as well. Probably has a case for overall-game MVP as I think some consider her (though she wouldn't be my pick offhand), for all that she's only an average choice later. She's the second best Commando at least because the dudes don't bother to pick up Faultsiphon.
Fang - Because Fang feels like that MVP. Sorta the opposite, at first she's only average: a respectable Commando, but kinda subpar at her other two roles... except slow is genuinely very cool so maybe not that much. But then as time goes on, she just gets really freaking good. Her strength soars way higher than anyone else's AND she gets the important commando skills, so she's by far the best at that role and you want one. Her saboteur skillset blossoms, eventually even getting Deprotect/Deshell, so she's at worst tied for best at that, and you want a Saboteur so badly since like everything save two bosses can be stat-downed and stat-downs are AWESOME. Oh yeah and she can do a decent turn as a sentinel; not as good as Snow due to HP but more than good enough. Past a certain point she was the only PC I felt I couldn't consider removing without making my party clearly worse. But at least she dislikes physical-immunes!
Sazh - Sazh is a pretty interesting case. I possibly overrate Haste a bit but I do like it a lot, and also think the offensive buffs are very potent (mostly the En- spells, Brave/Faith are a more modest boost). Sazh provides these. I generally found his indirect increases to party offence more than made up for his other roles which are... bad. COM/RAV off party-worst overall offensive stats. He's not too far behind at first, but it definitely gets worse as the game goes on. Then in C12 Hope gets his unique buffs (save Vigilance which is kinda cool but not enough) and he gets shown the door. I did find him one of the best PCs until then, though; favourite parties at various points until C12 were Lightning/Sazh/Vanille, Lightning/Sazh/Fang, Sazh/Fang/Vanille, and Sazh/Fang/Hope (order irrelevant within each party). Note how he's always there? Yeah. Just made 5-starring battles and chewing through bosses before they could get scary much easier.
Hope - Bad HP, but pretty great otherwise. Might be the best Ravager due to his super-high magic. Likely the best medic. Vanille's not too different here, so the real reason Hope draws in to the party is of course that he also gets the Synergist role. I just praised offensive buffs, but the defensive are great too. For a while, once I felt I could safely drop Vanille due to Fang picking up Deprotect/Deshell, I was quite happy to use both synergists, but once their skillsets overlap more Hope is the clear winner because great RAV/great MED is a lot better than mediocre RAV/mediocre COM. Low HP at least makes the decision worth thinking about, though... and until he gets the offensive buffs his contribution to party offence (and hence 5-starring) is a little shaky, for all that I certainly pulled him out in fights where I badly wanted Protect/Shell then.
Vanille - Deprotect and Deshell and Imperil are so awesome. Stack them with En-spells, quadruple your damage. Great medic too. See above, I think she is quite comparable to Hope, and the only reason I used Hope instead of her late is because her main role competition (lategame Fang) is much better than Hope's (lategame Sazh). Might well be the most important PC until Fang gets Deprotect/Deshell(/Imperil) though it's hard to say for sure. Always maintains a unique niche in statuswhoring at least thanks to Poison and Death, for all that I haven't fought the enemies which make these really useful. Deprotega and Deshellga I also did miss sometimes.
Snow - Snow's main niche is HP (and Ravager casting speed apparently, for all that his magic is too low for this to feel abusive, though he IS a great choice for quickly staggering things probably). This isn't too bad a niche especially if he wants to taunt everyone and play sentinel. Naturally, my playstyle emphasises offence over defence, though, which largely left Snow by the wayside, and Fang can generally assume his role well enough if needed; she's not good at it but for me at least, she was acceptable seeing as it wasn't a role I spent a majority of my time in. He's kind of a subpar Commando despite Lightning-level strength due to late Blitz and no Faultsiphon, which feels a bit weird but I guess it makes sense since the women emphasise killing things and he emphasises not dying. In hindsight he may have served me comparably to Lightning for a third, though - I'd have traded off some offence for better chaining and his Sentinel may well have served me better than Lightning's medic (unsure, would have had to test). So... better than I thought since I felt he was struggling to find a party slot for a while.
It's overall not a badly balanced cast (though it might risk being a bit unbalanced at individual POINTS) and pretty fun to chew through what with all the role paradigms and whatnot. There's even a lot of stuff I haven't yet really considered (secondary roles which are... actually pretty interesting potentially despite the lower role level) which is fun. Game does a great job of making a cast which feels distinct while fundamentally having similar tools to work with. I have basically nothing but positive things to say about the game's role system, with its 6 jobs that all manage to feel very useful.
Aesthetics-wise, awesome visuals and music which is a mixed bag (solid enough, but then you get things like the final dungeon battle theme...) but generally decent. I don't have a strong opinion on it.
Polish-wise, generally good. The ability to restart outside a battle (including upon death) is wonderful and I'd love to see more games do this given that it allows games to be much more challenging without kicking you in the crotch should you die. The game's minimap takes steps so that you won't be lost and know how to advance the plot, which I approve of, since I no longer play RPGs to put up with garbage like getting lost. And the fact that all PCs get full CP out of battle is great; it allows you to switch PCs as the circumstances dictate, and/or experiment with parties, without being fucked over for this. There are some flaws here, though, such as the saving system which defaults to a weird slot and caused me to accidentally save over some locations I wanted to keep. Game needed to save paradigms when you changed parties, somehow. Too many points of no return as others have also alluded to.
Game gets a 9/10. It... just feels very overall complete, and in general respresents a lot of what I'd like to see more of in the genre. It has real innovation; it has bold writing, it avoids the tropes of the genre I dislike, it doesn't waste my time. I don't think it's for everyone; crazy people who love their non-linearity and towns and roleplaying (haha yes RPGs lack roleplaying, is is funny but true and they are better for it) obviously aren't going to care for it. For me, though? It's all things I want, none of the garbage I don't. Great stuff. I thought Radiant Historia was good but FF13 is clearly better at most everything. Miight even be a 10 but I'm definitely not willing to annoint it that without a lot more mulling it over; how badly do its lategame writing problems hold it back? Ultimately, where does its gameplay fall compared to other greats? etc. 9 will do for now.
