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Protagonists
Lightning: One of the series’ best protagonists. I love how beneath her gruff and cold exterior, she’s not warm and fuzzy on the inside and just needs to learn to loooove.
She’s nuanced. She’s loving and warm to those she cares about in a way that’s still gruff and at many times assholish. Lightning’s character growth doesn’t turn her into a different person.
Lightning art by Benvey, posted by djinn87.
She’s Lightning from start to finish, through and through. I wouldn’t trade her for anyone.
Reminds me a fair bit of Squall. I liked her from the start though; it took me a while to appreciate Squall.
Fang and Vanille: What a pair. They love each other so deeply. The game’s heroes.
Fang and Vanille art by うちらに任せな.
One of the first major queer couples in the series. As I said before, I just wish the game were more overt about it.
Sazh: The best grumpy dad, with some majorly tragic moments.
Hope and Snow: Not my favorite characters. I liked them both – Hope throughout, and Snow by the midpoint. It’s more that I feel I’d seen Hope before, and Snow wasn’t quite my style.
Still cool! Just not characters I expect to stick with me years from now the way Lightning, Sazh, Fang and Vanille will.
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Antagonists
Dysley/Barthandelus: Felt underdeveloped. I get his desire to break out from his role in Cocoon, but didn’t know what to make of his “I must save everyone from pain!” thing or where that came from.
Barthandelus art by doctoreggman294.
So much left unanswered around the Maker. I’d be surprised if that’s the last we heard of them.
The Fal’Cie: What a brilliant decision to diversify the fal’Cie instead of having them be monolithic villains. They could be antagonistic, helpful, or wild forces of nature.
Jihl Nabaat: I was sad she petered out. Hoped she’d become a Big Bad.
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A Few Side Characters
Serah: I would love for one of the sequels to focus on her somehow.
Serah art by tsuaii, posted by CJWriterGal.
Cid Raines and Rosch: Good people misused by a shitty system. Poor Cid – that ALWAYS happens to him.
Which is still what makes his XII incarnation so great.
Chocobo Chick: The game tried to be coy, but I see through it. Sazh’s chocobo chick is obviously the Maker reborn. The only question is whether it’ll be the Big Bad in XIII-2 or Lightning Returns.
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Story/Tone
XIII’s story rode the strength of its mysterious world-building and cosmology. It confused me, but in a good and intentional way. The world is suffused with a feeling of almost Lovecraftian or Old Testament insignificance. Our characters constantly scrambled to grasp their role in the universe, and on a tight clock to boot. Of COURSE they would be confused and panicked.
If I had to guess, I’d bet the sequels continue to explore this cosmology. We still don’t know so much about the Maker. They never even made an appearance.
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Interpersonal Relationships
In my opinion, XIII’s greatest non-gameplay strength is its two-character relationships. Some games tend to just focus on two things:
1) The relationships between the protagonist and the other party members.
2) The relationships between each party member and the rest of the party in general.
XIII spend a lot of time developing specific relationships within the party, even outside the protag. Some of my favorites were Lightning and Hope, Sazh and Vanille, Hope and Snow, and Vanille and Hope. I largely credit the early parts of the game that split the party up for this strength.
Vanille and Hope, by terurreru, posted by djinn87.
Funny. I said Hope didn’t really click for me, but I loved so many of his party interactions. Perhaps I liked him more than I realized, or perhaps I like him mostly as a vehicle for exploring other characters.
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Gameplay
Paradigms: I was ready to hate this. I loved FFX’s slow, deliberate pace, and this seemed push towards more an APM focus. So happy to be wrong. Paradigms are one of my favorite combat systems in the series. It gives each fight a strategic element. They’re puzzles to be solved.
You very rarely just out-level a thing to the point where you don’t need to think about paradigms. I love it.
Crystarium: Just as FFV’s job system was a straight-up improvement over FFIII’s, I find the crystarium a straight-up improvement over FFX’s sphere grid. None of the logistical worries with a lot of similar freedom and customization.
I also like the semi-linear character paths, with three main roles per character. Always have liked that, such as in FFIV and FFIX. If a game leaves character progression open, I prefer it to be only semi-open like XIII rather than fully open with something like VII.
(FFV is the exception, where I wouldn’t change a single thing about the job system despite being fully open.)
Gil: Gil scarcity is nice in theory. This was the first game where I came across a chest with gil in it and felt happy! It just went a bit too far. Gil was so scarce for most of the game that I had no real hope of engaging with the various stores.
This isn’t an isolated problem. It’s tied to…
Item Leveling & Components: Strong dislike. The components provided terrible information about they helped upgrade things, and the choices (“Do I buy this ooze or that ooze? This conductor or that one?”) were not fun. Just felt like I was flailing about with non-meaningful choices.
The worst part though was how when I chose to upgrade my weapons, I basically locked myself out from ever getting new ones (since I didn’t want to start over). Some had cool abilities and undoubtedly cool transformations; it’s just that their stats were so much worse than my upgraded starter weapons that I couldn’t bring myself to swap.
I’m sure this would’ve been better with a guide. I view any system requiring a guide to navigate such basic elements of that system in a negative way.
Eidolons: Visually, these were brilliant takes on the esper/eidolon system. More than meets the eye!
Shiva Sisters cosplay by Nikita and Sikay.
I just never used them. I blame the TP system rather the eidolons themselves. Why the actual FUCK did they put Libra on the same resource as Eidolons summoning?
Libra was so crucial in XIII, given that party members automatically chose actions based on what info you Libra’d. Forcing me to choose between using Libra and using Eidolons makes no sense to me, and prevented me from enjoying and using the eidolons in any non-incidental way.
On Rails: I know this is a big sticking point for many, and I can respect that. People like exploring open worlds! XIII did not provide that. Totally valid thing to dislike.
It just didn’t bother me personally. I try to judge games on their own terms. What was XIII trying to do? It consciously chose a linear system, and I do not see this as strictly worse than an open world system. It provides more focus, gives the game more control over its encounters.
It even did add that a taste of that openness by the end via…
Cie’th Stone Missions: This was as close to the game got to open exploration. These were a fun challenge. My favorites were the ones that told a specific story, whether through the Cie’th’s personality or the target. Titan’s Trials were especially fun.
My only complaint is that I wish they skipped some of the generic enemy hunts. The system would’ve benefited from more paring down. Focus on fewer hunts, make them all cool and unique (like the Undying fights), and make them reward you more heavily.
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Music
Some favorites:
-“The Promise.” What an opening theme! I’ve always been a sucker for sweet piano-centric melodies. I also liked this piece’s many different variations, like “The Sunleth Waterscape.”
-“Snow’s Theme”
-“The Vile Peaks”
-“Sazh’s Theme” and “Can’t Catch a Break” – This sort of jazzy style feels so rare for the series.
-“Vanille’s Theme”
Special honors to the fully-voiced chocobo theme. XD
Thanks to Noybusiness for posting music as the series progressed!
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Art
Character Design: Four personal favorite pieces, though this is really just a small sample of the many character design choices the game made.
1) Lighting’s gunblade. A far more intricate contraption than Squall’s. Lots more moving parts, gears. Gets me psyched to try the new gunbreaker job coming to FFXIV.
Lightning art by Senjiness, posted by CJWriterGal.
2) Lightning’s cape. I dunno why. Just something about that flowy red half-cape works super well.
2) Sazh’s aviator style.
3) Fang’s EVERYTHING, LITERALLY HER EVERYTHING.
Her hair, her Rinoa-style color scheme and dress, her voice, her tattoo, her attack animations (especially on Highwind).
Zones: Two clear favorites: Lake Bresha and the Sunleth Waterway. Both heartbreakingly beautiful, the first with its alien crystal and the second with its pure natural glory.
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Length
Ended at 83:26:38. (Probably 3-4 hours less, taking away time I spent paused/idling.) Most importantly, it never dragged. The length felt fine.
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Replayability
Pretty high! More Cie’th stone missions, learning about different weapon strategies and transformations, and party compositions. I focused mostly on Lightning, Sazh, and Vanille, and would experiment more with the other characters on replay.
I think my understanding of and appreciation for the story would benefit from replay too.
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A Brief Ranking of the Main FF Games I’ve Played It’s Just One Small Opinion Please Don’t Kill Me
1. FFIX
2. FFX
3. FFVI
4. Chrono Trigger
5. FFXIV
6. FFXIII. This is a tough one. I like the mechanics in FFXIII far more than FFVI (and to a lesser extent, more than Chrono Trigger), but I like the story better in the VI/CT. I value the story and characters more. Very close call.
7. FFXII
8. FFV
9. FFVIII
10. [TIE] FFVII and FFIV. I like the FFIV story more and FFVII gameplay more.
12. FFIII
13. FFXI
14. FFII
15. FFI
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A Final Note on Expectations
I’ve been around the FF community a while now. I talk to friends about it, I watch LPs of past games, etc. Even avoiding spoilers, I can’t help but hear things in passing. Coming into this game, I heard two expectations:
1) I heard that though some people love it, many disliked it. Saw lots of comments along the lines of “I love the series! At least, before XIII, but I don’t count that as REAL FF.”
2) I heard that the combat for the series reached its slowest point in FFX and only got faster. I loved FFX’s combat, so I was dreading a speed increase in XIII. Would it adopt something like Crisis Core, pure action?
I’m happy to say that both these expectations worked in my favor by making me pleasantly surprised. I really enjoyed FFXIII for its story, art, characters, and gameplay. Again, this isn’t me saying that people are wrong to hate XIII. That’s totally fine and a matter of taste!
(Mostly, anyway. It sounds like Lightning gets shit on a lot for reasons which add up to basically not smiling enough and the like, which I can’t pretend is a neutral, “just a matter of taste” criticism rather than a toxic and gendered criticism with hostile real world impact.)
Lightning, by Omar.
The gameplay may be the most surprising. I was shocked to find how much I hooked into the paradigm system. It was fast, but not in a PUSH ALL THE BUTTONS NAOWW!!1! way. It focused on in-combat strategy rather than out-gearing and out-leveling enemies more than any other game in the series.
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Next time: Taking a break from the XIII series next week. The following week, starting Final Fantasy XIII-2 on PC.
