Squeenix Why do people hate FF XIII, but love FF X?

[Delterius]

If you put aside the furry main character and the polarizing art style.

'Aside from your lungs, your cancer is cured! Hurray!'

I'm not particularly against either, but that's how you sounded like.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

What polarizing art style? I thought everyone agreed FF9 looks great.

As for Zidane's tail:

 

[yes plz]

What polarizing art style? I thought everyone agreed FF9 looks great.

As for Zidane's tail:

Fixed that for you.

But, yeah, I don't think I've ever seen any serious hate for the way FF9 looks. Personally, I think it looks the best out of all the FF titles. Even from just a technical standpoint, the game looks good -- the environments and characters are fairly hi-res for a PSX game, especially compared to FF8.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

What polarizing art style? I thought everyone agreed FF9 looks great.

As for Zidane's tail:

Fixed that for you.

But, yeah, I don't think I've ever seen any serious hate for the way FF9 looks. Personally, I think it looks the best out of all the FF titles. Even from just a technical standpoint, the game looks good -- the environments and characters are fairly hi-res for a PSX game, especially compared to FF8.

Most of the hate I've seen revolves around the fact it "DOES NOT LOOK SRS AND GRIMDORK!!!1!".

 

[StaticSpine]

especially compared to FF8.

 

[Delterius]

Most of the hate I've seen revolves around the fact it "DOES NOT LOOK SRS AND GRIMDORK!!!1!".

Personally? I think that throwbacks to an artstyle from the 2D era should have been in 2D. Making everyone look like a small child with a giant head in 3D was jarring. I can see why it was liked by many, but I'm not surprised that it wasn't universally loved either.

 

[Duraframe300]

It looking as it did, played very well to its themes and provided a nice contrast to the darker aspects for the story.

The Art Style was perfect for the game. (Ofc, with some charachter design exceptions like Eiko)

 

[Xor]

I just couldn't get into FF9. I could only play it for about 4 hours before getting bored.

 

[Ninjerk]

I just couldn't get into FF9. I could only play it for about 4 hours before getting bored.

Too whimsical?

 

[Crooked Bee]

Funnily, FF9 was one of the - let me count - five FFs that I actually could get into, along with Tactics, FF5, FFX-2, and 4 Heroes of Light. The rest of the series never managed to do much for me, not even FF6 or 12.

I've yet to play FFXIII and XIII-2, though

 

[Perkel]

Because at least it has story which you can understand.

I always thought that without its story it is worst FF.

Oh boy i was sooo wrong...

FFXII single player shit mmo with gutted story because se dodn't want to have good story and proper protagonist (bash) and FFXIII being FFX clone without its pros.


I loved 6 and 8, 9 was also good one due to its amazong world design but rest are terrible

 

[Brayko]

dunno. i hate very ff besides 4, 5, 6 and 8

 

[tuluse]

People like X?

There are people that actually like X-2?!

 

[Whisky]

Funnily, FF9 was one of the - let me count - five FFs that I actually could get into, along with Tactics, FF5, FFX-2, and 4 Heroes of Light. The rest of the series never managed to do much for me, not even FF6 or 12.

I've yet to play FFXIII and XIII-2, though

Weird, I mean, I love FF9, but it's the furthest thing from the class based games you listed.

 

[Ninjerk]

Funnily, FF9 was one of the - let me count - five FFs that I actually could get into, along with Tactics, FF5, FFX-2, and 4 Heroes of Light. The rest of the series never managed to do much for me, not even FF6 or 12.

I've yet to play FFXIII and XIII-2, though

Though I liked it, I've always thought 6 was a bit overrated anywhere I've seen opinions expressed on the series as a whole.

 

[Delterius]

Funnily, FF9 was one of the - let me count - five FFs that I actually could get into, along with Tactics, FF5, FFX-2, and 4 Heroes of Light. The rest of the series never managed to do much for me, not even FF6 or 12.

I've yet to play FFXIII and XIII-2, though

X II?

 

[Damned Registrations]

I hated the artstyle of FFIX. It wasn't so much a throwback to the 2D era games as a parody of them. Nobody ever looked like fucking Steiner or Eiko. Even Zidane and Garnet are fucking bobbleheads. The only characters that look halfway decent in that game are Vivi, Amarant and Freya, owing to the fact that they don't seem to be human to begin with. Also, Cid's wife for some reason?

 

[Ninjerk]

Cid's wife was decidedlly not-ridiculously proportioned.

 

[Abu Antar]

FFXII had some great moments in its story. Better than any of the mainline FF games. Its problems were the long dungeons and no chatting between companions while you traveled. The writing in XII is great.





I wish Matsuno's vision of the game had stayed. That would probably have made it one of my favorite games of all time.

 

[Keldryn]

FFXII had some great moments in its story. Better than any of the mainline FF games. Its problems were the long dungeons and no chatting between companions while you traveled. The writing in XII is great.

Yes. I never actually finished FF12. I think I'd logged nearly 60 hours in the game when I took a long break from it (7 years and counting). There were many things that I loved about the game and how it got rid of so many of the annoying and limiting JRPG conventions. The dungeons dragged on way too long, and I think that I lost interest in the game because I didn't feel like doing one particular dungeon and just started wandering around looking for other things to do.

Also, while the story is great, the main character is not. FF12 is Princess Ashe's story, and Vaan is simply an observer who stumbles onto the scene. That narrative device can work in film and fiction, but it's a poor fit for a video game. I also can't stand Vaan's character design.

I wish Matsuno's vision of the game had stayed. That would probably have made it one of my favorite games of all time.

What was Matsuno's vision of the game?

Coming back to the title of this thread, FFX did have a pretty good turn-based combat system and the sphere grid provided a nice way to customize party members' abilities while still favoring certain roles for each character. I enjoyed it a lot when I played it back in 2002. The main character was annoying and the game was very linear, but the story was interesting and the presentation was very well done. This was the first time that the in-game character models actually started to resemble those in the FMVs.

I haven't played FFXIII, but it comes off as over-produced and even further in the direction of "why don't you guys just make a CG movie instead of a game?" It starts to look more like God of War than Final Fantasy. I've read about how painfully linear it is, and with very limited time for gaming, I haven't even bothered picking it up in the bargain bins. I can't say much more, not having played it. It just appears to deviate as much as it can from playing like an RPG, and that's probably why it's not well-liked here.

 

[Delterius]

I wish Matsuno's vision of the game had stayed. That would probably have made it one of my favorite games of all time.

What was Matsuno's vision of the game?

Whatever it was it didn't have Vaan and caused him to go against the upper echelons of Squarenix, until going mad. It can't possibly be bad.

 

[Abu Antar]

I can't find the link, but it is said that the game was altered after he left. Basch was supposed to be the main male character. Vaan and Penelo being included in the game did not make him happy. The picture shows his original design.

 

[Morality Games]

I think people are just alot more lax on it because of a combination of it being one of the big titles for the Playstation 2, and rose-tinted glasses. If you look at it now the story's not that great, the characters (save Auron) not that interesting, the voice acting terrible even for the day (MGS2 was released the same year and completely blew it out of the water in voice direction), and about the only real stand-out thing about it was the combat, which is still very good.

Could also argue that the decline of JRPG's in the western market (In 2001 we were living in a post-Final Fantasy VII world, in 2009 we were living in a post-Call of Duty 4 world) has lead to the flaws that would've been ignored at the time of FFX's release to be looked on in a much more critical light. The spectacle of having cinematic moments in video games and honest-to-god gorgeous CGI cutscenes simply don't wow audiences as much as they did in 2001.

Pretty much this.

I would also add that Final Fantasy 10 still had most of the things that marked greatness in the Final Fantasy series. For example, the narrative grew into a semi-open world. Very late, but there were some cool mysteries to discover (wrapped up in legendary weapons or optional Summons). Revisiting previous locations mattered. You could also make some pretty outrageous recruits to your blitzball team (Rin, for example). Spira, although visually distinctive to the point of almost being alien, was a much more overtly fantastical than prior or later settings and didn't emphasize buttons or zippers nearly as much (except for the first couple minutes and Tidus' character design). Importantly, it was the last hard turn-based entry in the series before FF11 brought in the MMO cameras and combat design.

Final Fantasy XIII is A --> B design through and through. MMO sensibilities. The corridors never give you a chance to roam free and get to know the setting and characters in a personal way, and the story never supplies you with any reason to care about the world other than its "the world" and "of course you have to save it."

Also changing tastes in the market. We live in the era of branching paths, dialogue, and personal protagonists in RPGs, something which Square Enix has dug its heels against (especially in the Final Fantasy series) for mostly bad reasons.

 

[Whisky]

FFXII had some great moments in its story. Better than any of the mainline FF games. Its problems were the long dungeons and no chatting between companions while you traveled. The writing in XII is great.

Yes. I never actually finished FF12. I think I'd logged nearly 60 hours in the game when I took a long break from it (7 years and counting). There were many things that I loved about the game and how it got rid of so many of the annoying and limiting JRPG conventions. The dungeons dragged on way too long, and I think that I lost interest in the game because I didn't feel like doing one particular dungeon and just started wandering around looking for other things to do.

Also, while the story is great, the main character is not. FF12 is Princess Ashe's story, and Vaan is simply an observer who stumbles onto the scene. That narrative device can work in film and fiction, but it's a poor fit for a video game. I also can't stand Vaan's character design.

I wish Matsuno's vision of the game had stayed. That would probably have made it one of my favorite games of all time.

What was Matsuno's vision of the game?

Coming back to the title of this thread, FFX did have a pretty good turn-based combat system and the sphere grid provided a nice way to customize party members' abilities while still favoring certain roles for each character. I enjoyed it a lot when I played it back in 2002. The main character was annoying and the game was very linear, but the story was interesting and the presentation was very well done. This was the first time that the in-game character models actually started to resemble those in the FMVs.

I haven't played FFXIII, but it comes off as over-produced and even further in the direction of "why don't you guys just make a CG movie instead of a game?" It starts to look more like God of War than Final Fantasy. I've read about how painfully linear it is, and with very limited time for gaming, I haven't even bothered picking it up in the bargain bins. I can't say much more, not having played it. It just appears to deviate as much as it can from playing like an RPG, and that's probably why it's not well-liked here.

As far as I can tell, it went like this:

Basch was originally going to be the main character. That alone would make it very different from other FF games.

Square then wanted a younger, more typical main character.

Then Matsuno pitched Balthier as the main character, which also would be excellent as even in the final game, Balthier is the most popular and likeable character by far. (Consider Balthier's first words to Vaan, "Who am I? I'm the lead man.")

Square then wanted a younger, more typical main character.

So we got Vaan.

 

[Rahdulan]

As far as I can tell, it went like this:

Basch was originally going to be the main character. That alone would make it very different from other FF games.

Square then wanted a younger, more typical main character.

Then Matsuno pitched Balthier as the main character, which also would be excellent as even in the final game, Balthier is the most popular and likeable character by far. (Consider Balthier's first words to Vaan, "Who am I? I'm the lead man.")

Square then wanted a younger, more typical main character.

So we got Vaan.

From what I understand Vaan existed since the very beginning of FF12, while Matsuno was still on-board, it's just that he wasn't anywhere near as important. When SE decided to turn him into a token MC they didn't really create anything for him to do so his "story" essentially ends ~5 hours into the game and then he's just there to tell Ashe "nuh-uh, revenge is bad, gurrl" when someone like Basch could've filled that role so much better considering everything he went through.

Penelo is a character who literally has nothing to do with the story and just decides to tag along. Unless you count fanservice as worthwhile goal.

Goddammit Vaan, sometimes you're so stupid even I'm taken aback!