I've often stated my belief, only half-jokingly, that Shin Megami Tensei, as a series, is everything that Final Fantasy wishes it could be, from a storytelling and character-building perspective. One of the most recent entries in that series, the spectacular Persona 4, is a great example - it's a lengthy tale (I spent 67 hours total completing it) but none of that time was spent poorly. The story is well paced, the characters are fleshed-out and likable, and the overall narrative is both easy to follow and intriguing in its twists. Persona 4 is, for my money, one of the best JRPG's of all time. It's the kind of game that I always thought Final Fantasy, deep down, wanted to be.
Final Fantasy XIII has shown me that I was wrong in this assessment. Because Persona 4 is still a game. If XIII is anything to go by, I'm not sure Final Fantasy wants to be that anymore.
Where do I start with this game? How can I properly describe how utterly horrific an experience it has been to sit through it for this long? Can I even call it a "game" at this point? It certainly doesn't feel like a game, as I understand the term to be used. So far, it feels like nothing more than a long string of cutscenes, almost like a movie in design. Even the parts that most closely resemble an actual game are stripped of any true gameplay value, an empty husk of what once was an actual interactive experience.
The most notable point in where Final Fantasy has stripped out any part of actual gameplay is in the very world that you play in, Cocoon. As far as I can tell, Cocoon is form of nothing more that endless, straight forward hallways that merely lead to the next straight hallway.Every time I gain "control" of the characters - and I use the term very loosely - you have no actual choice in what to do with them. You are given a clear path, and you have to take it. Other RPG's are usually noted for their expansive worlds, where the player is free to explore at his or her will. Fallout 3 comes to mind - if you want, you can delay working on your actual quest for as long as you want, doing side quests, discovering towns or just randomly wandering around, trying to see what's up that next hill. Another game, Skies of Arcadia, presented a huge world for the player to discover and explore, and playing the game opened up more and more of this world0 for you to explore at your liking.
The only thing notable about the world of Cocoon is how little there is to do. It seems unimaginable to me that, after playing an RPG for 19 hours - nearly a full day! - that I have not once been able to choose where to go, what to do, or even who I take to do it. Look at Skies again - the game distinctly tells you where you should go to continue your quest - the the point of almost drawing an X on your map for you - but there's nothing forcing you to go there. you know where the next dungeon is, but don't want to go tackle it quite yet? No problem! Head back to town, do some side quests, find some hidden locations, whatever. The choice is up to you.
In Final Fantasy XIII, the only choice I've been allowed to make so far is "Do I turn left here, and head down the next linear corridor, or do I go right, get the item I can see - and then head the other way, because there's nowhere else to go?" You are unable to control anything in FF13. Hell, it's been 19 hours, and I just got to decide which characters I can take into battle. I've been complaining about this for a while, how the game randomly changes perspective to allow every character their chance to complain about how sad they are, forcing you to change up your battle style every time they switch. Now I have all of them together in the group, and as luck would have it, I now have no desire to change anything, because the game randomly handed me a team that works (Lightning for main offense/pinch healing, Hope for magic/main healing/buffs, and Fang for offense/defense/debuffs).
Speaking of battle, that's another way that Square Enix has tried to turn the "game" part of this game into a movie. You are only able to control one character - the others are controlled by the computer - and, unfortunately, I am again using the term "control" very loosely. You can tell your character what exact actions to take, but the pace of battle is so fast that doing so will get your team killed, so there's no reason to do anything but hit "auto-battle" over and over until everything in front of you is dead. Every now and then, you have to switch paradigms - a system the control what actions your character takes, from physical attacks to magic and healing - to make sure that you're team doesn't die, but that's pretty much the only action you'll ever have in battle. I used to think that the battle system wasn't that bad - it was decently quick, and I can only imagine how long this game would have been with traditional turn-based combat - but after hours and hours of the same fight, I'm starting to hate it with a passion. It confuses me to no end how Squeenix managed to turn what was once an intensive, strategic combat style into a goddamn button masher.
Another thing that's traditional in RPG's that Squeenix decided to change - What's wrong with the traditional style of leveling up? Is there something wrong with "Gain experience, go up level, get stronger" that Square Enix can't stand? What is the deal with this Crystal bullshit? FF13 doesn't award experience after a battle, it gives "Crystarium points", with which you go into the Crystarium and use those points to gain small bonuses in strength, HP, and, occasionally, new skills in whatever role you want. There's nothing specifically wrong with it - but there's absolutely no reason for it. Ostensibly, the reason for the Crystraium is because your characters have multiple roles to develop, but I don't see any reason why your character can't gain regular levels, and the individual roles develop differently as the regular level goes up. It's just very strange.
That's enough for now - I know I ignored the characters and story, but really, insulting the story at this point is just stating the obvious. We'll save it for next time.
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