Joint Review: Final Fantasy 13
Out of pure coincidence, both Kidokoro and Kirie finished Final Fantasy 13 at around the same time.
We found this to be a good opportunity to do, for the first time on our blog, a joint review.
As we had a lot to say about the game, this article is longer than usual.
Kirie:
Well, how about we start by briefly talking about why we ended up buying the game, perhaps keeping in mind what we expected from the first FF game made for the PS3.
Kidokoro:
In my case, it was from word-of-mouth – I heard from my friend, who was playing the game, that it was not as bad as what’s being said on the internet.
Kirie:
So you didn’t pre-order the game?
Kidokoro:
Some of the online communities have heavily criticized the game*, so that had a bit of influence.
To be honest, I was being cautious about buying the game; now that the game is on the PS3, the price of the game itself has risen, and I didn’t want to be disappointed if the game ends up being not what I expected.
The FF series has a strong reputation, and a significant amount of money has gone into the development of this game. I think the developers were pushing it a bit by pricing the game this high.
Yuuri, how did you feel?
(*Negative comments such as “Characters can’t move around freely at all” and “The dungeons were really linear” were posted on online communities)
Kirie:
I wasn’t paying as much attention to those aspects, but was more so attracted by the graphic quality seen from the trailers. Also, I was looking forward to the voice acting.
However, I have to say I agree with you on that I was feeling somewhat uneasy about the price of the game.
Kidokoro:
Right, so you were perceiving it more like an anime, where the focus is more on the story played out by the characters, rather than a game where you are focusing more on the gameplay?
Kirie:
Although I did pre-order the game, I must admit I gave into ordering the game after seeing that one of the stores had some discount deals going on.
Kidokoro:
I see. Indeed those pre-order deals, whether it may be special items such as character goods and exclusive soundtracks, or some special deals like discounts, do give incentives for some people to buy things.
Kirie:
I certainly did keep in mind that I was purchasing a game, so I was expecting a certain amount of quality in gameplay, but over the past few years I have come to develop a liking for certain voice actors.
Of course, this is just a matter of personal preference.
Kidokoro:
In that sense, the improvement in a gaming console’s ability to express has some correlation in the content of game software. I might be able to write something about that.
Kirie:
And to be honest, I was somewhat attracted to Mr. Nomura’s character designs. After all, there hasn’t been an occasion where I was severely disappointed by any of the games that had characters designed by Mr. Nomura – I’ve enjoyed playing FF7, 8, 10, and Kingdom Hearts.
Of course, no matter how good the character design is, it would be pointless to play a game if the actual content of the game is bad, but… I don’t know, it could be a bit of a placebo.
Kidokoro:
Well, if it’s the case that an illustrator you like is involved in the game, that certainly does have some impact.
Leaving that aside for now…
Kirie:
To a degree, being attracted to character design is somewhat similar to how some people buy CDs based on the cover designs (versus the actual content of the CDs).
Now that we have some ideas about how we ended up buying the game, let’s talk about our impressions on the actual game.
Kidokoro:
Right.
Given that we both have just recently beaten the game, let’s talk a bit about the overall impression of the game from start to finish.
Kirie:
Why don’t you start Kidokoro, given that you were the one who finished first.
Kidokoro:
One thing I can say for sure is that the movie scenes were rather long.
Kirie:
I definitely have to agree with you on that. By the way, how long did you take to finish the game?
Kidokoro:
A bit more than 50 hours. I’m thinking this is probably average.
As far as the event/movie length is concerned, I suppose it can’t really be helped given that the recent FF series are focusing more on the story as if it were a movie*.
Perhaps it’s somewhat typical for FF.
(*Hironobu Sakaguchi, who was the director of the series up to FF10, has stated that their intent is to create a drama that surpasses that of a movie.)
Kirie:
That’s true. I do recall the movie scenes in FF12 being pretty long.
Kidokoro:
The players had to be drawn into the game, especially from the beginning to the middle of the game, and so there were a lot of monologues by the main characters and some of the background story leading to the events in the game.
I think a lot of times I was just watching the movie and not doing much else.
On the contrary, it was a lot of fun once the story shifted to the Pulse (the surface world). It felt like, “I’m free! Woo-hoo!”
Kirie:
Given how all 6 playable characters* can be perceived as a “main character,” there were definitely more stories to be told.
(*consisting of Lightning, the female sergeant who is the main lead character in the beginning; Snow, Lightning’s younger sister’s husband; Sazh, a civilian airship pilot; Hope, a civilian boy; Vanille, a mysterious girl; and Fang, a mysterious woman going after Vanille)
Kidokoro:
True that.
The events may be darn long, but there was definitely a lot of good in the fact that the game was structured in such a way that all playable characters are the “main” characters.
Especially with regards to Sazh.
Kirie:
Definitely!
Kidokoro:
Typically in an RPG, the main character is young, and the story revolves around the main character’s development, right?
Kirie:
True, you probably don’t see many games where you see a middle-aged man in the position of a main character.
Kidokoro:
In FF13, you get to see the events from the eyes of middle-aged Sazh – the developers make use of his position as the one who cannot do reckless things, is responsible to calm the youngsters who are being reckless (such as Snow), and is struggling with between his situation and his emotions feeling that he could not just stand and do nothing as he gets himself involved with the events.
I won’t say much to avoid spoilers, but I personally liked the events leading to and following Sazh’s acquisition of his Eidolon*.
(*Summoned creatures who are associated with each main character)
Kirie:
Another positive thing about having multiple main characters is that you don’t get bored of them.
Kidokoro:
Certainly.
Kirie:
The main characters in this game all have different personalities, come from different backgrounds, and, of course, look very different from one another, so there’s bound to be at least one “favorite” for everyone.
Kidokoro:
Even though the dungeons were linear, the story kept revolving rapidly between the focal characters, so it actually didn’t feel painful.
I have to say, I really liked Sazh.
Kirie:
I liked him a lot too. Anyway, now that Kidokoro’s said a lot, I should comment a bit.
I actually had the same kind of impressions as Kidokoro.
Kidokoro:
Oh?
Kirie:
I actually took my time earning some CP* at one of the areas, so it took me roughly 75 hours to finish the game.
(*CP stands for Crystogen Points, or experience points in this game)
I do admit it took me a while to learn how to utilize the different roles and paradigms*, like CSySa and the like.
（*In FF13, characters switch between roles, which determines the abilities they use in a battle. Abbreviations such as CSySa or CRR stand for paradigms, the combination of roles)
Kidokoro:
Certain paradigms like SaSaSy are useless and extend the battle times if you’re just fighting weak monsters.
Kirie:
The total amount of time it took to finish the game did seem long because of the long movie sequences, but now that I think of it, the actual “gameplay” time was not that long.
Kidokoro:
As a matter of fact, the game moves on fairly quickly.
The battle sequences are relatively speedy too.
Kirie:
Come to think, I feel there was something lacking from the game.
After all, in the previous game FF12, it took over 100 hours to finish the game, and the movie sequences weren’t as long as those from this game!
Kidokoro:
You think so too, right!?
In the previous game, it took a while just to move from one city to the next!
Kirie:
So now that we’ve talked about our general impressions about the game, how did it differ from our original expectations for the game?
Kidokoro:
It wasn’t as bad a game as people say, would be my honest opinion.
It’s true that the dungeon was linear, that they had some random jargon that could have been replaced with simpler words, and that the event sequences were lengthy. But they did follow up by explaining some of the terminology, the battles did require some strategy which made it fun, and there was enough room for character customization, so I did have quite a bit of fun from it.
Kirie:
I got the impression that the “introduction” was somewhat lengthy, but surprisingly, that wasn’t all that painful.
Kidokoro:
Yeah, that was a pleasant surprise.
Kirie:
I also agree with you on the strategic aspect of the game. Sure, it’s possible to beat a strong boss once you grind enough to reach a high enough level, but it was actually a lot more fun when I found out that some enemies can be easily beaten by tweaking around a bit with the strategy.
For example, you can beat an enemy “normally” using CRR, but that same enemy can be defeated in an instant by using CSyR or CSaR.
Kidokoro:
There are times that buffing and de-buffing enough with SaSaSy may make a battle much easier, while there are times that you need to fight aggressively with CRR or CCR from the start or else you end up dying.
Kirie:
I’m sure we can write a full-fledged article just by talking about the strategies, so let’s switch the subject a bit.
So FF13 “wasn’t as bad as people have said,” but was there anything you felt uneasy about?
This might just be an issue of personal preference, but I felt weird seeing a non-Ossan (Ossan = middle-aged or old guy) Cid*.
(*Throughout the FF series, “Cid” is a recurring name for a character. Yet in the previous games, with the exception of FF7 where Cid is a character in his 40′s, the character “Cid” has always been a male character aged at least 50-years-old.)
Kidokoro:
Not too many things came to my mind.
With regards to some small details about the system interface, it could have used some other way of enlarging the map instead of just a head-up display.
If there was a choice between head-up and a north-up, that might have been nice, but this could just be a matter of personal preference.
Kirie:
Another thing that was somewhat disappointing was the fact that there wasn’t an “airship” like vehicle in this game, despite all other games in the series having one.
This may be due to how most areas in the game are designed to be one-way, and you couldn’t return to a previous area later in the game.
Kidokoro:
The range of accessible areas were somewhat narrow too.
Kirie:
Going back to the character design, I feel there seems to have been a bit too many “pretty” characters. Cid being one of them, and a lot of the villain characters were “pretty” too.
For that matter, it seemed there actually wasn’t a whole lot of characters in the game.
Kidokoro:
That’s true, a lot of the characters were were rather pretty.
I personally prefer to have a lot more middle-aged and elderly men, as seen in FF12, so… it was somewhat awkward.
Kirie:
It wasn’t that everyone was pretty, though it could have used a bit more visual variation.
Kidokoro:
The only elderly male character who stood out was probably Primarch Dysley*.
(*The character who rules Cocoon, the world the main characters live)
Kirie:
It could just be that we’re expected to just suck it up and be happy we have an ossan as a main character, but again, that’s just my imagination.
Kidokoro:
Give us MORE O-S-S-A-N!
Kirie:
This is a bit off-topic, but I recently went out for dinner with some folks from the UBC Anime Club, and we were talking about FF13 – and we then go into a conversation about how Cid wasn’t an ossan.
I couldn’t come up with the right word in English for ossan at the time, so I turn to my friend, and asked in Japanese, “Hey, how would you say ossan in English?” My other friends, overhearing that conversation, then said, “It’s OK, we know what ossan means.”
Kidokoro:
So, ossan is a term that can be used worldwide?
Kirie:
I’m thinking there’s a high enough demand for ossan, even overseas. After all, I don’t even need to translate the term.
Kidokoro:
So it’s part of the universal language!
Kirie:
At least for the folks over at my Anime Club, yes. Nothing less than I expected from UBC (or not).
Well, now that we’ve now discovered that the demand for ossan is high enough overseas, shall we move on to the next topic?
Kidokoro:
I see why not?
How about our impressions on the game, now that we’ve finished the game, and seen what can be done even after beating it?
Kirie:
I was actually surprised to see that there were some things that you cannot do until you finish the game*.
(*In FF13, the characters cannot reach its maximum level without first defeating the final boss. As well, there are many enemy monsters that cannot be defeated without leveling up further than what is necessary to defeat the final boss.)
Kidokoro:
I think, that from now it’s the true beginning of hell!!
Kirie:
I won’t go into detail about what can’t be done until you defeat the final boss, but I don’t think I’ve seen something like this in the previous FF games.
Kidokoro:
There are all these missions (which require defeating certain boss monsters) to go through, and it’ll take a while to max out on all the characters’ levels and such – there are still so many things to do.
Those are requirements for obtaining trophies*.
(Trophies are one of the user-profile systems for the PS3 on the PlayStation Network. Upon fulfilling a certain requirement (such as obtaining a certain score, maxing out on a character’s level, or watching a particular event), players are awarded with trophies, which are displayed with their online profile as a proof of achievement)
Kirie:
In that sense, there’s definitely a lot of playable contents even after finishing the game.
Kidokoro:
It feels like you’ll be able to keep playing for a good long time.
Kirie:
As far as maxing out on the characters’ levels… that really seems like it’ll take a good long time, I don’t know whether I should look forward to it.
Kidokoro:
There were some awkward aspects, but generally speaking, it was a pretty good game.
Kirie:
Agreed. There have been some severe criticisms, but you can’t tell whether that is true or not until you actually play it.
Kidokoro:
Indeed. I have to say, rumors are rather scary at times.
Kirie:
I guess it’s hard for people to find out on their own given how expensive the retail price of the game.
Kidokoro:
Certainly, it’s truly regrettable in that sense, and shall we end on that note?
Kirie:
I say why not.
Thank you for reading our article, it was something new that we tried, and we hope you enjoyed it.