Is Final Fantasy XIII really that bad?

[Crossing Eden]

It's a game full of fundamentally unlikeable, (but very well designed) characters and a borderline non-existent supporting cast. The game does a horrid job of dropping you into the prevailing conflict making the melodramatic emotional investment the characters have feel awkward. The story itself is never given time to breath and by the time it does it drops you into an mini open world where the plot is "training arc with no character investment." The very existence of auto battle removes a lot of investment into the combat system and min maxing damage output because at least subconsciously, players will think "why not use auto battle if my party is set up to basically deal with most threats." Speaking of parties, the game's party feels as linear as the level design itself as each character has a very specific role that they will be better at than anyone else. Some roles even break the encounters and make it feel like battles are going through the motions by the time you are actually able to customize your party. (20 hrs in...) Motivation wise, the game does a very very poor job of defining the villains, which is usually your motivation for playing an RPG, there's always a villain and/or set of villains to defeat. Yet no one remembers space pope when they talk about notable final fantasy villains nor did the moment where he kills all his henchmen read anything other than baffling and confusing.

 

[GuessMyUserName]

Yes, much as people want to say how bad the story in XIII is at least you can actually remember it!

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Gotta massively disagree here.

 

[Deleted member 35631]

Absolutely NOT! The game is great! The characters are great! People only hate it because it is linear, and somehow they thought we would get a GTA style openness when it was announced.

 

[Jakisthe]

I have no idea where this "but the combat was good" stuff is coming from. No it wasn't. At best, it was serviceable, but a lot of the time it was early gen "turn your brain off and watch the flash" trash.

 

[Ivanovic]

-Poor story, awful characters I couldn't stand apart from Sazh, average soundtrack.

+The best most addictive combat system in any RPG which more than makes up for every negative.
+wonderful graphics with its futuristic theme.

For me I have fond memories of it due to the positives which outweighed the negatives. Can't wait to play it again to experience that sweet combat system.

 

[Eeyore]

Music and battle system? Loved them.
Characters? Thought they were bland and unremarkable for the most part.

I don't think it's bad by any means, because for a fair amount of people, the characters will be fine. I just don't think it's a great casual game like some others in the series.

 

[Haze]

It's not bad but it's not that good either.

it's one of those games that for everything good it does, it does something bad and vice versa.

The combat is really good but it railroads the characters into certain roles and there's some small issues with it like not being able to control AI.

The lore and world are unique and interesting but the presentation is usually through logs that just appear in menus once you reach certain chapters.

The characters have fulfilling development by the end of the game but the introductory hours of most of them are poor and don't give you a reason to get invested in them.

The game opens up to a pretty large world to explore in the closing hours and it's a genuinely enjoyable part of it. But that's after dozens of hours of pressing forward on the analog stick to get to the next combat encounter or cutscene.

It's just... average.

I still can't believe they forced the XIII series down our throats for a full gen

 

[Combichristoffersen]

It's not the worst game ever, but it's pretty dull. At least it was better than X. XII is better than both.

 

[Tbm24]

I have no idea where this "but the combat was good" stuff is coming from. No it wasn't. At best, it was serviceable, but a lot of the time it was early gen "turn your brain off and watch the flash" trash.

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I genuinely don't understand how you can suggest this. The game would be incredibly frustrating if you put no thought in approaching the combat and your paradigms. Also, if all you ever did was hit auto battle, you're leaving a TON of damage on the table.

Before I get ahead myself, I don't mean to call you out specifically I just see this a lot and given I've been replaying the game recently, I don't really have many places to address it until the random XIII threads pop up.

 

[Perkin_Warbeck]

It's a great game. If a lot of linearity really turns you off, certainly don't play it. Also some of the characters are a little off. But it's a beautiful game with strong combat and a great story. For the story, it's essential that you read all the codex bits. Some might see that as a failure of storytelling, but I didn't mind it. The linearity is also in service of the story, as you spend most of it being chased.

 

[Bradford]

Is it backwards compatible on Xbox One?

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The Xbone version is technically the best version, as it doesn't have the macroblocking issues of the PC release yet runs the game at a high resolution and consistent frame rate.

 

[mrgoomba]

It's really linear and having to only press A (x360) all the time on combat and a very confusing and no sense story, but I remember enjoying it at the time. If you like FF you should play someday..
XIII-2 was better

 

[ABIC]

It's a game full of fundamentally unlikeable, (but very well designed) characters and a borderline non-existent supporting cast. The game does a horrid job of dropping you into the prevailing conflict making the melodramatic emotional investment the characters have feel awkward. The story itself is never given time to breath and by the time it does it drops you into an mini open world where the plot is "training arc with no character investment." The very existence of auto battle removes a lot of investment into the combat system and min maxing damage output because at least subconsciously, players will think "why not use auto battle if my party is set up to basically deal with most threats." Speaking of parties, the game's party feels as linear as the level design itself as each character has a very specific role that they will be better at than anyone else. Some roles even break the encounters and make it feel like battles are going through the motions by the time you are actually able to customize your party. (20 hrs in...) Motivation wise, the game does a very very poor job of defining the villains, which is usually your motivation for playing an RPG, there's always a villain and/or set of villains to defeat. Yet no one remembers space pope when they talk about notable final fantasy villains nor did the moment where he kills all his henchmen read anything other than baffling and confusing.

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I completed FF13 and my recollections mirror this post.

I remember almost nothing of the plot or who the antagonists were and why. I remember some of the characters very clearly like Lightning. I remember her demeanor but not her character arc.

I also remember the combat system, which I really liked. And the sudden drop into the weird open world. But nothing else.

It was also when I started detaching from FF, made worse by FFXV and I was ready to stop playing any future FFs until remake.

 

[Niceguydan8]

I think XIII itself isn't particularly amazing, however I did like it a lot more than whatever Square was doing with XV. I would say it's a good game, not great.

I do think, however, that XIII-2 is legitimately great and Lightning Returns has the best combat of any FF game I've played.

 

[ReginaldXIV]

It's fine, the games that came after it are far better. Though the characters don't get much better. Sazh and Fang being the only interesting characters (maybe Serah.)

 

[snausages]

It's a bad game with great systems. It's not just that it's linear, it's that it locks all its best stuff away until chapter 10

 

[Astro Cat]

It's nowhere near as bad as people say it is. It has a massive amount of problems but an excellent battle system. It's definitely on the lower end of the series but some of y'all act like it murdered your family. I've played every game in the series at this point and its still a solid if unremarkable game. OTOH I love XV which is another unfairly hated game.

 

[Crossing Eden]

I completed FF13 and my recollections mirror this post.

I remember almost nothing of the plot or who the antagonists were and why. I remember some of the characters very clearly like Lightning. I remember her demeanor but not her character arc.

I also remember the combat system, which I really liked. And the sudden drop into the weird open world. But nothing else.

It was also when I started detaching from FF, made worse by FFXV and I was ready to stop playing any future FFs until remake.

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And I think more than anything else, the reason why this game didn't resonate despite having the best graphics on console at the time. Is that there is not a single relatable character in the game. To a further degree than any other FF game, not a single person in this game acts like a person we can relate to.

 

[Jakisthe]

I genuinely don't understand how you can suggest this. The game would be incredibly frustrating if you put no thought in approaching the combat and your paradigms. Also, if all you ever did was hit auto battle, you're leaving a TON of damage on the table.

Before I get ahead myself, I don't mean to call you out specifically I just see this a lot and given I've been replaying the game recently, I don't really have many places to address it until the random XIII threads pop up.

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I mean sure you put some thought in; not nearly as much as other battle systems. It's not like you can ignore it entirely, but hoo boy is there a lot of ignoring.

 

[Hero_of_the_Day]

Yes. It is trash.

13-2 is surprisingly good, though.

 

[VirtuaModel]

I enjoyed my time with it. I played it for 35 hours and stopped around right when it opens up. I intend to play through the trilogy one day still.

 

[Ushojax]

Yes, it is. It has beautiful graphics, nice music and a slick battle system but they didn't spend enough time making an actual game. I never understood what was happening in the story and it was one long corridor until right before the end. Too much time and money was spent making this new engine, the game design was not a priority.

To go from the majesty of FFXII to this 40 hour tech demo was quite odd.

 

[NeoBob688]

I liked it both on PS3 and also replaying @ 4K on Xbox One X.

Soundtrack is great, visual style is great, combat is great. It makes up for the mediocre story/characters.

 

[Dreamwriter]

I mean sure you put some thought in; not nearly as much as other battle systems. It's not like you can ignore it entirely, but hoo boy is there a lot of ignoring.

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Sounds like you played maybe 10 hours or less, because once the combat system really unlocks there's no way you can ignore it, it takes a lot of strategy and quick thinking. FFXII had more ignoring than XIII, because that game's combat system was completely designed around programming the characters to do everything on their own without the player's interaction. The difference is, XII started with you doing everything and as you progressed you did less and less, while XIII was the opposite, it started with you doing little but unlocked more depth (and more need for depth) as you progressed.

Unless you did some cheese min/max strategy for everything, I guess, but that'd be like hating on a fighting game because all you choose to do is spam Sonic Boom and claiming the game has no strategy.

 

[Starlatine]

I genuinely don't understand how you can suggest this. The game would be incredibly frustrating if you put no thought in approaching the combat and your paradigms. Also, if all you ever did was hit auto battle, you're leaving a TON of damage on the table.

Before I get ahead myself, I don't mean to call you out specifically I just see this a lot and given I've been replaying the game recently, I don't really have many places to address it until the random XIII threads pop up.

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Personal anecdote but i went through the entire game doing the "paradigm that builds stagger at the start - paradigm that keeps stagger when it happens" dance the entire game, with very occasional medic paradigm changes here and there. Maybe i had to do something different on one or two eidolon fights but save for the dumb motorcycle i cant even remember them. Sure i didnt get five stars in every combat, but it was more than good enough to carry me the entire thing, and i'm glad it did because i was so done with the game four hours in

 

[Jawmuncher]

It's fine. Maybe not the best FF, but far from a bad game. The hallway design reminds me a lot of FF7R, just with less variety.

 

[Tunichtgut]

Played XIII and XIII-2 and those are the only FF-Games i would never ever touch again. Didn't like the lore, the chars, the combat, nothing. It may be an mediocre game, but to me it's the worst FF-Game.

 

[Niceguydan8]

Personal anecdote but i went through the entire game doing the "paradigm that builds stagger at the start - paradigm that keeps stagger when it happens" dance the entire game, with very occasional medic paradigm changes here and there. Maybe i had to do something different on one or two eidolon fights but save for the dumb motorcycle i cant even remember them. Sure i didnt get five stars in every combat, but it was more than good enough to carry me the entire thing, and i'm glad it did because i was so done with the game four hours in

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I don't think you are necessarily wrong but I also think that one can be this reductive and valid about basically all FF battle systems.

 

[Haunted]

XII was an extremely tough act to follow and it failed.

There's like one chapter where you can see the potential, the open world one. Overall a completely forgettable experience and it ultimately just did not live up to the name.


Obviously not the worst game ever, that's dumb internet hyperbole.

 

[Starlatine]

I don't think you are necessarily wrong but I also think that one can be this reductive and valid about basically all FF battle systems.

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The other games i played i at least had to pick the commands i had to use. I just let auto pick spells and skills on ffxiii every time, since it was faster and more efficient than me going through the menus to do it (the AI was pretty smart about picking weaknesses and not repeating resisted moves when it discovered it which is a plus i guess?). I just change paradigms according if the big bar is full or big bar is empty.

 

[Transistor]

It's a boring game with uninteresting characters, a nonsense story and an overly simplistic battle system where you can sleep through 80% if the game.

It's damn pretty though, and the music is pretty banging.

 

[exodus]

Chapter 11 and on are good (outside of the story), and the combat would be great if they removed the paradigm shift animation that triggers on the first use in every battle.

Unfortunately, it's just not worth putting up with the rest of the game.

 

[GiantEnemyCrab]

It's more or less like Final Fantasy 7 Remake without the nostalgia bonus.

So yes.

 

[-Tetsuo-]

It is bad. There is 0 level design and the combat isa joke. I actually played through a majority of my time holding forward and pressing square or whatever he auto battle button was while I was reading GAF. Like, I physically was not looking at the screen and I am not exaggerating. Then you get treated to cutscenes to push along nonsense plot involving a bunch of annoying ass characters. That game straight up sucks. It remains the only Final Fantasy game that I have started but not beaten.

 

[Sub Boss]

It's a game full of fundamentally unlikeable, (but very well designed) characters and a borderline non-existent supporting cast. The game does a horrid job of dropping you into the prevailing conflict making the melodramatic emotional investment the characters have feel awkward. The story itself is never given time to breath and by the time it does it drops you into an mini open world where the plot is "training arc with no character investment." The very existence of auto battle removes a lot of investment into the combat system and min maxing damage output because at least subconsciously, players will think "why not use auto battle if my party is set up to basically deal with most threats." Speaking of parties, the game's party feels as linear as the level design itself as each character has a very specific role that they will be better at than anyone else. Some roles even break the encounters and make it feel like battles are going through the motions by the time you are actually able to customize your party. (20 hrs in...) Motivation wise, the game does a very very poor job of defining the villains, which is usually your motivation for playing an RPG, there's always a villain and/or set of villains to defeat. Yet no one remembers space pope when they talk about notable final fantasy villains nor did the moment where he kills all his henchmen read anything other than baffling and confusing.

Click to shrink...

Somehow many fans still think FFXII is worse for some reason

 

[Bit_Reactor]

It's a game full of fundamentally unlikeable, (but very well designed) characters and a borderline non-existent supporting cast. The game does a horrid job of dropping you into the prevailing conflict making the melodramatic emotional investment the characters have feel awkward. The story itself is never given time to breath and by the time it does it drops you into an mini open world where the plot is "training arc with no character investment." The very existence of auto battle removes a lot of investment into the combat system and min maxing damage output because at least subconsciously, players will think "why not use auto battle if my party is set up to basically deal with most threats." Speaking of parties, the game's party feels as linear as the level design itself as each character has a very specific role that they will be better at than anyone else. Some roles even break the encounters and make it feel like battles are going through the motions by the time you are actually able to customize your party. (20 hrs in...) Motivation wise, the game does a very very poor job of defining the villains, which is usually your motivation for playing an RPG, there's always a villain and/or set of villains to defeat. Yet no one remembers space pope when they talk about notable final fantasy villains nor did the moment where he kills all his henchmen read anything other than baffling and confusing.

Click to shrink...

Sums it up quite succinctly I feel.

 

[bounchfx]

If you grew up playing all the others it was a pretty fucking massive blow to confidence in square. First ff I straight up gave up on because I just got bored and uninterested. Graphics were lovely though.

 

[Dreamwriter]

Motivation wise, the game does a very very poor job of defining the villains, which is usually your motivation for playing an RPG, there's always a villain and/or set of villains to defeat. Yet no one remembers space pope when they talk about notable final fantasy villains nor did the moment where he kills all his henchmen read anything other than baffling and confusing.

Click to shrink...

Because the players are the villains. The game's story wouldn't work if there were obvious villains, it's all about how the players are wanted by everyone in the world because they are working for the rebel gods who want to destroy the world. And the players themselves aren't sure if that's what they are doing or not. An obvious villain would take away that gray area and tension.

 

[baberunisei]

I subscribe to the following opinions already expressed in this thread:

1. it's much better than XV
2. It's polished
3. It has a great battle system
4. It has an excellent soundtrack

 

[Mr. Genuine]

It would have been RPG Of The Generation if it wasn't for one enormous flaw: the Datalog.

Instead of having proper exposition weaved within the dialogue and other elements of the game's narrative, the game expects you to pause every 15 minutes to read a couple of paragraphs to explain the last scene by providing you with a text-only explanation of previous events and the "lore" of the world. FF7 has scenes with Barret preaching about Mako reactors and how they destroy the world to an apathetic Cloud. Instead of doing something like that in 13, they decided to bury everything in the main menu. The kind of uniquely terrible story telling you can only get away with in video games.

 

[Altera]

Nope. I liked it a lot. Great battle system and I really enjoyed the story.

 

[TwntyOneTwlv]

No. Port it to Switch, cowards.

 

[Crossing Eden]

It's more or less like Final Fantasy 7 Remake without the nostalgia bonus.

So yes.

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When you examine
-game pacing
-how the games introduce the players to the plot, characters, gameplay system, and world
-how the games break up combat encounters
-how much agency the player has even early on when it comes to customizing your character and later overall party to fit your idea of what roles characters should play
-side content and the overall rewards for side content, (in the case of FFVII more characterization for the party members, more equipment and materia which lets you customize to a further degree, smart ways to introduce later game enemies to the player earlier than the story or even exclusive enemies)

FFVII is WAY better designed than FFXIII. The only surface level similarity is that they're both relatively linear titles. Linearity in itself is not a bad thing. Linearity is not the REAL reason why FFXIII was criticized, or why it felt off for most people.

 

[Deleted member 11626]

Without the Final Fantasy name to live up to, it wouldn't have gotten nearly the amount of hate that it got. It's incredibly linear, but the battle system is a blast, the visuals are a great, and the soundtrack is fantastic. I personally like Lightning as a character too.

The main issue is that the story isn't that great, and when a game is super linear and handholding, that's a bad thing. When the game does open up, it really doesn't improve. I replay most Final Fantasy games, but I'll never touch 13 again. It's not a bad game, I just don't feel like I'll get much out of a replay.

I'd like to add that I adored 13-2, though its story is equally nonsense. The battle system is still great, there's little handholding, the soundtrack is just as good, and it's not very linear. Plus I think Caius is one of Final Fantasy's most underrated villains. Lightning Returns is a game nobody asked for, but the battle system and customization are among the best in the series. The music is still really good, with many of the tracks from the two previous entries present. If you have any interest whatsoever in the sequels, play 13. If not, I wouldn't consider it a necessity.

 

[Jakisthe]

Sounds like you played maybe 10 hours or less, because once the combat system really unlocks there's no way you can ignore it, it takes a lot of strategy and quick thinking. FFXII had more ignoring than XIII, because that game's combat system was completely designed around programming the characters to do everything on their own without the player's interaction. The difference is, XII started with you doing everything and as you progressed you did less and less, while XIII was the opposite, it started with you doing little but unlocked more depth (and more need for depth) as you progressed.

Unless you did some cheese min/max strategy for everything, I guess, but that'd be like hating on a fighting game because all you choose to do is spam Sonic Boom and claiming the game has no strategy.

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I got to Gran Pulse, or whatever the planet below was called, and always felt it fell seriously flat compared to just about every other [modern] battle system in the series. Now, I do hear that this is when things truly "open up", but also, the 30 hours it took to get there was more than enough to have well formed thoughts on the battle system, and any further pacing changes were by design. At least XII had interesting ways you could program party members and shift the engagement to preparation.

 

[thecaseace]

It's at least better than FF8 and is good towards the end once combat and exploration opportunities open up.

Unfortunately that's at least 20 hours in.

Definitely has a good battle system once it gets good.

 

[Undeniablybiased]

I hated everything about it except for the fact that it was pretty. Even the combat that people praise was incredibly boring.

 

[pleaseinsertdisctwo]

I'm not even going to bother reading any of this thread bc reading XIII hate makes me angry/sad, but the answer to your title is:

NO.

Final Fantasy XIII is a great game. Just not for everyone, obviously.

 

[GiantEnemyCrab]

When you examine
-game pacing
-how the games introduce the players to the plot, characters, gameplay system, and world
-how the games break up combat encounters
-how much agency the player has even early on when it comes to customizing your character and later overall party to fit your idea of what roles characters should play
-side content and the overall rewards for side content, (in the case of FFVII more characterization for the party members, more equipment and materia which lets you customize to a further degree, smart ways to introduce later game enemies to the player earlier than the story or even exclusive enemies)

FFVII is WAY better designed than FFXIII. The only surface level similarity is that they're both relatively linear titles.

Click to shrink...

I'm sorry but these differences are minuscule to me. Overall I was constantly reminded of FFXIII and similar games while playing.

Only the nostalgia got me through FF7R (I didn't finish FFXIII)

 

[Crossing Eden]

Because the players are the villains.

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The players are the villains according to the incredibly convoluted lore that dictates that in the context of the situation where they are given 0 agency and go from there they are villains, who oppose, the actual villains who're more like greek gods turned anime archetypes torturing people for the sake of it.

I'm sorry but these differences are minuscule to me. Overall I was constantly reminded of FFXIII and similar games while playing.

Only the nostalgia got me through the game (I didn't finish FFXIII)

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I had broken the FFXIII combat system to such a degree with my party setup that the final boss literally died in 59 seconds. That's how poorly thought out the combat design of 13 is. And honestly it's no wonder that they held your hand for so long because the second the handholding turns off you are given the opportunity to trivialize the game. FF7 has way more effort put into balancing, pacing, and player agency. It's just in general way more fun to invest in the gameplay systems of FFVIIr because of the options on display and the quality of the party and story despite less characters. IIRC, the trigger for a scene like this for example is literally just walking to a specific area of the map and nothing else:


meanwhile, there are many moments in VIIr that affect later moments of the game, (costumes and such), and scenes that the player otherwise wouldn't see because they engaged with optional content. In fact, i'm not even sure that there are other optional scenes besides this one someone please fact check me if there are and what are the triggers for those scenes.