Final Fantasy has always been regarded as one of the greatest series ever produced, the masterful skill of Sakaguchi and his team weaving tales of pure brilliance, but with XIII came shock. The ‘linear’ world and ‘sub-par’ battle system causing critics to lash out in anger, dropping a, still very respectable, 83 Metascore upon XIII’s head. For a series consistently receiving scores delving near to perfection, this was an upset of major proportions.
If the problems could be righted with it’s follow up, XIII-2, then maybe the whole horrid episode could be forgotten, but there was worse to come. XIII-2 was damaged more by critics as well as users, and with a possible XIII-3 on the horizon, will Final Fantasy ever return to it’s former excellence? But more importantly, did Final Fantasy ever really fall from grace in the first place?
Gary Green said: With my fondness for (most) Final Fantasy games and my side goal of finishing off games in my collection with loose ends, a return to Final Fantasy XV seemed inevitable. It also serves as my third Final Fantasy platinum trophy after VII and VIII, a reasonable substitute since Final Fantasy IX is nigh on impossible to master.
While FFVII ranks highly, there's more to the series than one game. Here's Chit Hot's picks for the seven best Final Fantasy characters.
Alex Donaldson: "Hindsight is a hell of a thing, however, and in the years since Final Fantasy XIII, my respect for the decisions its developers made has skyrocketed. In the two Final Fantasy titles since we see both the brilliance and the folly in alternative approaches - and in Final Fantasy VII Remake, we get a more nuanced understanding of what FF13 was trying to accomplish from many of the same development leads."
FFXIII is actually one of the best Final Fantasy games.
I also sort of was disappointed at the time, never as much as the bandwagon. But really all the fantastic 3D rendered cutscenes and I actually liked the characters and the story though convoluted was actually fantastic and the ending was extremely emotional. So much budget and time were put into that game Square had such big plans, I actually have always felt kind of bad for how things played out.
I have been thinking for years how great it would be to get all three games on one disk for PS4 or 5.
i liked the game alot but i didnt like how they handled the terminology.
i dont mind reading data logs but it had soo many.
but i always loved the music and how it looked. the battle system wasnt too bad either.
but i like 13-2 more :)
i still dont understand why we never got a remaster of the trilogy
XIII is a pretty solid game, but XIII-2 is WAY better. XIII-2 was one of the few games I decided to go for a Platinum trophy in, early on. Had so much fun the entire way through getting it too!
I hated this to when it released. I haven't much liked a ff game since ff10 as much , aside from ff7remake. I decided to give it another shot on my series x since it's not on a current ps and was liking it quite a bit(just takes me some time to get over things ) until star ocean 2 remake came out I was all over that.
Square should definitely remaster it or something for ps4 ps5
To be fair, it began to fall from grace when they began producing X-2. The plot was great, and the ideas were there, but the writing was just garbage. Then came XII which was a great game from a gameplay standpoint, but the story was boring as hell for me and the characters were barely memorable. Not to mention the game lacked anything colorful. Moving on to XIII, the characters and world were fantastic, the story was a bit lackluster, and the thing that killed it was the linearity (both in movement and in level progression).
This entire piece is doom and gloom, sensationalism
News flash, FF 13 was very successful for square and guess what alot of people loved it
13-2 was damaged by critics and users? Is that why for a non main game it sold unbelievably and got many 7-10 scores?
Whenever I read a review like this it makes me said for how much gamers generalize
the problem with Final Fantasy has been the same that has plagued many japanese developers... they try to "westernize" their games, and in the end they dont appeal to the fans of the JRPG, and fail to understand what makes a western RPG diferent. So we end up with a games that dont know who they are appealing to.
I think cause of the pedigree of the Final Fantasy games every new game in the franchise is put up to high expectations. If those expectations are not met than it is considered a failure in the series. That is what happened with FF 13 reception. Fans were expecting WAY too much for this game cause it was the first game for the new generation of consoles.
Being multiplat had nothing to do with the poor rep this game gets but i do believe Squarenix poorly handled the development of the game. The potential for Final Fantasy 13 is there, it is too bad that Squarenix cared more for a paycheck than making a quality game.
Sure it is the highest selling game in the franchise but that is mostly due to the hype that the game got & the high expectations of it.
Can the series return to its former glory that they saw in the ps1 & ps2 days? Certainly but it all depends on if Squarenix is willing to change their ways & remember what made them successful in the past.
Final Fantasy went down the toilet a decade ago. The last remotely decent game was FFX but even that was not anything spectacular. Everything after that is worthless garbage ranging from FFX-2 to their latest MMO. I am not expecting much from vXIII and will likely be the final nail in the coffin.
Even Square-Enix openly admitted they took a wrecking ball to their loyal fans that have appreciated and supported their games, just so they can cater to the lowest common denominator of gamers: horny virgin losers masturbating to computer generated depictions of non-existent female characters.
Fail company. Obvious sellout. Pissed off their fans all for extra money.