Journal RogueyWon's Journal: As Final Fantasy 13-2 approaches... reflections on FF13
Final Fantasy 13 Part 2 gets its UK release on Friday. As it happens (for largely coincidental reasons related to my attempts to navigate the labyrinthine process of actually buying a house) I have the day off work, as well as the subsequent Monday. These aren't "days off" in the "sit around playing video games all day" sense, but I should get the chance to put in more hours to the game than I would with normal working days. Old Republic permitting, of course.
Direct sequels to main-series Final Fantasy games are not as unthinkable as they used to be. FF10 got a direct sequel, which I actually liked a lot. It had a very different tone to FF10, but it also had a level of old-school hard-core challenge that was missing from many Japanese RPGs of its era. FF12 got a sort-of continuation in the form of Revenant Wings on the DS. I quite liked that one, but I think it struggled to establish its storyline. And, while a prequel rather than a sequel, there was FF7: Crisis Core. That one I did like - a lot. It fleshed out a lot of detail around the plot of FF7, while also providing a damned good story in its own right. I guess there was FF7: Dirge of Cereberus as well - but that one was so utterly awful that I'm going to pretend it never existed.
Anyway, for a series which, despite the escalating numbers-in-titles, was known for a long time for "not doing sequels", Final Fantasy has shifted a lot in recent years. So in one sense, FF13-2 shouldn't come as a shock. And yet...
Let's be honest here. FF13 was not a good game. Not even remotely. While I wouldn't, perhaps, go as far as Destructoid's wonderfully-written 4/10 demolition of it, there's no denying that it was a huge let-down. Combined with the truly dismal outsourced FF14 MMO (which I would struggle to justify rating even as high as 1/10), it played a big part in the trashing that the reputations of both Final Fantasy and Square-Enix have been through recently.
As a recap for those who missed FF13 or have blotted it from their memories - the game was linear. But aren't all Final Fantasy games (aside from the MMOs) linear? Kind of. But not like this. Every previous installment has included options for exploration, side-quests and treasure hunting. Yes, you're locked into a plot that is fundamentally on-rails (which is fine - if a game has a story it should tell it how it thinks best), but there's always the opportunity to look around a bit and have fun along the way. The extent to which this was possible has varied a lot over the years. FF6 had extensive optional sidequests once the player reached the World of Ruin. FF7 had its huge materia quests, its chocobo racing, battle areas and any number of other little distractions. FF10 was perhaps the most linear of the earlier games, reserving most of its sidequesting for relatively late in the game, but once you got there, there was a lot to do, some of it quite varied (such as Blitzball). Then there was FF12, which went so far in the direction of open-world gameplay that it started to feel almost like a singleplayer MMO - which I found really interesting and - once I got into the flow of it - fun to play.
By contrast, the experience of playing FF13 can be summed up thus: run down a corridor for 25 hours, break out into a small room for the next 5 hours, then go back into a final 5 hour corridor. That small room had a small amount of optional exploration, but within very, very tightly confined parameters. Combined with a combat system that was pretty much on rails outside of a couple of boss fights, it made the game feel like an experience that only tolerated the player at best, keeping him at arm's length from any actual involvement.
This was - as was hinted at strongly in several post-release interviews with FF13's development team - a game that was developed by artists. It was a game which, by Square-Enix's own admission, had twice the number of art assets created that were actually needed for the game before anybody even started to think about game mechanics, level design and storyline. Curiously, for a game that had a colossal budget, FF13 was starved of resource. It was starved of good project managers, game designers and testers - most of whom were presumably working on Square's never-ending succession of middling handheld titles. It was a jaw-droppingly beautiful game in places, but there was barely a single iota of fun in the entire package.
Don't get me wrong; there were some things I liked about it. Despite the bright, colourful visuals, it had probably the darkest plot of any Final Fantasy game (surpassing even FF10 which was, by its own admission, all about death). Some of its characters were surprisingly well written, despite initially seeming shallow. Sasz is probably the best example; despite starting the game looking like a crude racial stereotype (much like FF7's Barrett), he goes on to have one of the most complex and best-written character arcs I've seen in any game. Lightning was also significantly more complicated than her original "powerhouse" persona lets on - and after the indecisive protagonists the series is known for, it was nice to have a main character with such clear goals.
That said, the plot in general failed to hold together. The narrative was fractured and disjointed. I appreciate the intention to avoid large info-dumps on the player straight away, but the game took far too long to reveal information about the world and back-story which were known to the entire cast. Moreover, having established a world constrained by some strict rules, the writers then boxed themselves into a corner, to the point that the only way they could find to end the game was a fairly ludicrous Deus Ex Machina.
I'm therefore ambivalent about FF13-2. On the one hand, nothing that Square-Enix have developed (as opposed to published) recently has given me much confidence in the company. On the other hand, there was just enough that I liked in FF13 to make me curious as to what could be done via a properly managed sequel. It used to be that new Final Fantasy games were an automatic purchase for me. FF13 and FF14, combined with a succession of mediocre handheld spinoffs, has put an end to that. Future purchases are - as with most other games - now dependant upon reviews and word of mouth (only Bioware and Turn 10 are in my "free pass" category these days, and Bioware are on thin ice after Dragon Age 2). That said, the early reviews of FF13 have been just about interesting enough to justify a pre-order.
I'll post some more thoughts after I've played it.
Direct sequels to main-series Final Fantasy games are not as unthinkable as they used to be. FF10 got a direct sequel, which I actually liked a lot. It had a very different tone to FF10, but it also had a level of old-school hard-core challenge that was missing from many Japanese RPGs of its era. FF12 got a sort-of continuation in the form of Revenant Wings on the DS. I quite liked that one, but I think it struggled to establish its storyline. And, while a prequel rather than a sequel, there was FF7: Crisis Core. That one I did like - a lot. It fleshed out a lot of detail around the plot of FF7, while also providing a damned good story in its own right. I guess there was FF7: Dirge of Cereberus as well - but that one was so utterly awful that I'm going to pretend it never existed.
Anyway, for a series which, despite the escalating numbers-in-titles, was known for a long time for "not doing sequels", Final Fantasy has shifted a lot in recent years. So in one sense, FF13-2 shouldn't come as a shock. And yet...
Let's be honest here. FF13 was not a good game. Not even remotely. While I wouldn't, perhaps, go as far as Destructoid's wonderfully-written 4/10 demolition of it, there's no denying that it was a huge let-down. Combined with the truly dismal outsourced FF14 MMO (which I would struggle to justify rating even as high as 1/10), it played a big part in the trashing that the reputations of both Final Fantasy and Square-Enix have been through recently.
As a recap for those who missed FF13 or have blotted it from their memories - the game was linear. But aren't all Final Fantasy games (aside from the MMOs) linear? Kind of. But not like this. Every previous installment has included options for exploration, side-quests and treasure hunting. Yes, you're locked into a plot that is fundamentally on-rails (which is fine - if a game has a story it should tell it how it thinks best), but there's always the opportunity to look around a bit and have fun along the way. The extent to which this was possible has varied a lot over the years. FF6 had extensive optional sidequests once the player reached the World of Ruin. FF7 had its huge materia quests, its chocobo racing, battle areas and any number of other little distractions. FF10 was perhaps the most linear of the earlier games, reserving most of its sidequesting for relatively late in the game, but once you got there, there was a lot to do, some of it quite varied (such as Blitzball). Then there was FF12, which went so far in the direction of open-world gameplay that it started to feel almost like a singleplayer MMO - which I found really interesting and - once I got into the flow of it - fun to play.
By contrast, the experience of playing FF13 can be summed up thus: run down a corridor for 25 hours, break out into a small room for the next 5 hours, then go back into a final 5 hour corridor. That small room had a small amount of optional exploration, but within very, very tightly confined parameters. Combined with a combat system that was pretty much on rails outside of a couple of boss fights, it made the game feel like an experience that only tolerated the player at best, keeping him at arm's length from any actual involvement.
This was - as was hinted at strongly in several post-release interviews with FF13's development team - a game that was developed by artists. It was a game which, by Square-Enix's own admission, had twice the number of art assets created that were actually needed for the game before anybody even started to think about game mechanics, level design and storyline. Curiously, for a game that had a colossal budget, FF13 was starved of resource. It was starved of good project managers, game designers and testers - most of whom were presumably working on Square's never-ending succession of middling handheld titles. It was a jaw-droppingly beautiful game in places, but there was barely a single iota of fun in the entire package.
Don't get me wrong; there were some things I liked about it. Despite the bright, colourful visuals, it had probably the darkest plot of any Final Fantasy game (surpassing even FF10 which was, by its own admission, all about death). Some of its characters were surprisingly well written, despite initially seeming shallow. Sasz is probably the best example; despite starting the game looking like a crude racial stereotype (much like FF7's Barrett), he goes on to have one of the most complex and best-written character arcs I've seen in any game. Lightning was also significantly more complicated than her original "powerhouse" persona lets on - and after the indecisive protagonists the series is known for, it was nice to have a main character with such clear goals.
That said, the plot in general failed to hold together. The narrative was fractured and disjointed. I appreciate the intention to avoid large info-dumps on the player straight away, but the game took far too long to reveal information about the world and back-story which were known to the entire cast. Moreover, having established a world constrained by some strict rules, the writers then boxed themselves into a corner, to the point that the only way they could find to end the game was a fairly ludicrous Deus Ex Machina.
I'm therefore ambivalent about FF13-2. On the one hand, nothing that Square-Enix have developed (as opposed to published) recently has given me much confidence in the company. On the other hand, there was just enough that I liked in FF13 to make me curious as to what could be done via a properly managed sequel. It used to be that new Final Fantasy games were an automatic purchase for me. FF13 and FF14, combined with a succession of mediocre handheld spinoffs, has put an end to that. Future purchases are - as with most other games - now dependant upon reviews and word of mouth (only Bioware and Turn 10 are in my "free pass" category these days, and Bioware are on thin ice after Dragon Age 2). That said, the early reviews of FF13 have been just about interesting enough to justify a pre-order.
I'll post some more thoughts after I've played it.
As Final Fantasy 13-2 approaches... reflections on FF13 More Login
As Final Fantasy 13-2 approaches... reflections on FF13
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