As a
person who enjoys J-RPGs I have to concede to some of the reasons why people
don't like my favorite sub genre. I have
heard it all such as boring gameplay, bad characters, and horrible story; And
like this review it is all opinion of course.
And I will admit there are J-RPGs where I hate one of those aspects
while enjoyed others. Take Final Fantasy
V for example, it is has a slightly entertaining but over all boring
story. Yet it has gameplay that brings
me back over and over again. Unlike
Final Fantasy XIII which personally is so horrid on so many different facets
that I am amazed and a bit scared that this was created. For me Final Fantasy XIII should be a case
study in all the things that doesn't work in a J-RPG.
It's
hard for me to pinpoint what offends me about this game the most, but I would
have to say the characters are the worst offenders. Every character in this game is ripped right
out of the "Japanese Anime Character Stereotype How To" book. Lighting the angsty solder sadly has the most
growth out of the cast even if it's just "I accept you as my brother in
law". The rest of the cast for the
most part made me want to beat me head in.
I grew sick of Snow acting like a moron while not seeing how his actions
can affect other people and learning from them; all while being angsty about
his girlfriend being a crystal. Hope who
won't shut up about his dead mother and angst about it throughout a good
portion of the game. Vanille who acts
bubbly while hiding her own angst of turning a kid into crystal, while her
friend Fang is a live and let live type.
Last is Sazh, which pretty much went "My son is crystal",
"You made my son crystal, you shall die", and "Killing you won't
do anything, lets finish our focus".
Not much growth since he just went from an emotional outburst to a
rational conclusion in the span of one cutscene. I was so numbed from how awful the heroes
were I somehow got it in my head they where the bad guys, and I blame that on how
bad the plot was.
The
plotting in this game is awful and feels like it is full of holes the whole way
through. The story constantly implying
you were the "bad guys" then reversing it so much I thought the game
was having a bi-polar attack. What made
it worse was that the game kept dumping datalogs on me after each story moment
to understand what happened. Why the
hell do I need to read extra datalogs to explain a cut-scene that just happened. It's like if Mass Effect had a scene talking
about the Reapers being bad yet good then vomiting a datalog on me to say
"Oh no they are bad because raisins".
I don't even want to talk about the villain who is so pathetic that he
wants you to kill him, all that was missing was a ball gag in his mouth. I get that his overall goal, but it is odd
that if he was made to perform a task wouldn't that imply that his task is to
destroy cocoon? Also in the end he tells
the heroes that he wants to be
killed. In response the group says no,
so just talks his army into killing him.
Which in turn causes our brave heroes to want to stop the army, but
fighting and killing the big baddie in the process. Sadly playing the game felt like a metaphor for
cradle to spike covered grave, I honestly wished for my disc to explode so it
would give me some excitement.
Having
to view this masterwork of storytelling I believe is my new personal hell. I have never found a game to point to when
people ask "How come no one likes J-RPGs". But this game hits all the complaints people
have with the sub genre, slams a bell on your head and beats you with a hammer. This game should really be called a corridor
RPG, much like corridor shooters that have come out in recent years. Only difference is a corridor shooter will
require more brain cells then smacking the X button when a bar is full. "Clip-clop clip-clopping" down hall
ways and narrow paths having to hear your footsteps the whole time. I honestly think someone saw the scene in
"Monty Python Quest for the
Holy Grail" where the guy was clapping coconuts for horse steps and
thought that was something to have in the whole damn game. The only relief is during battles where you
can take a nap if you manage to set up a sippy bird to smack the X button for
you every seven seconds. Ninety percent
of battles had me scan then just smack auto-battle until I hit a new
enemy. When it does get hairy I just
have to swap pre-defined roles I had to set up like a mother trying to get her
five year old ready for school. So now
it is smack auto-battle, and if my health is low I swap to a medic team
auto-heal and switch back. After you
fight enough battles and get your angst high enough you get to spend time in
the Crystarium to level up. And it's not
like the Sphere Grid system or the License system where you pick how you want
to grow, it's just moving a node to predefined slots. So there is no choice just tedium and worse
off it gates you so you can't over power yourself until you get to a certain
point.
All and
all this was a depressing fantasy I would love to leave for reality. I much rather just play one of the older
Final Fantasy games or a current gen game like Lost Odyssey. This game is just crap in a very pretty and
thin wrapper.
