Does Final Fantasy XIII really deserve all the hate?

Travel back in time two years, It's December 2009 and Final Fantasy XIII has released in Japan.The game's launch in remaining territories is still months away.The level of anticipation and hype is unbelievable, Every J RPG fan in the world wants a piece of the newest and possibly biggest installment in Square Enix's Flagship Franchise Final Fantasy............

[jc48573]

I haven't even beaten the game (less than an hour), so I don't deserve to hate it (yet). Who knows? It might turn out alright for me.

[NukaCola]

It's gorgeous, with a decent story..but

To linear
Lacks 90% of what makes final fantasy...final fantasy
No towns
One playable character
Removed 15gigs of content (FXIII-2 on one Xbox disc..hmm?)
No point in Pheonix Down

It deserves it's scores, not idiotic hate. The game was piss poor in design to cater to the west.

[xX-StolenSoul-Xx]

I agree with you but I am not sure you even played the game...
I mean "One playable character" This is not true you can swap anyone out for whoever you like to play with.

Still I did not like FF13 since it was way to linear, story was not engaging. After 35 hours into the game I just stopped playing all together....
The game is even terrible in it's early stages with only auto fight.

I've much prefered the older Final Fantasy games, such as 4,6, 10, and 12.

[Reibooi]

First off they didn't remove 15 gigs of content. The reason XIII-2 was so quickly made was because they had experience with the engine and that was something they didn't have when making XIII also the reason XIII-2 fits on a single Xbox disc is because XIII-2 has almost no CGI movies like XIII did which ate a massive amount of space on those 360 DVD's.

now On topic. I liked XIII. It wasn't the best Final Fantasy game but it wasn't as bad as people make it out to be. Did it have it's issues? Sure every game does and to be honest I think the hate on it for being to linear is BS considering FFX was exactly the same way until a certain point in the game the only difference was there were towns(which i understand the complaint of) However from a story stand point it made sense to not have towns as the characters are on the run and it would not make sense for them to sit there and relax in a town and do some quests and once the game does open up and let you do what you want it's in Gran Pulse where those who are pursuing you won't follow. Makes sense from a story perspective even if people didn't like it.

Almost every Final Fantasy had something people didn't like when it came out and then as years go by people forget about it. For example. FFXII everyone hated the more serious story and the MMO like combat and Gambit system(now the game is quite fondly remembered) X was trashed because of the voice acting despite it being the first FF game to do that) IX was hated for the return to the cartoony characters, 8 was hated for the Draw system and the depth of linking spells to stats. etc etc.

Every game had something for the haters to bitch about and XIII was no different the amount of hate on the game was so blown out of proportion it's laughable.

[Dante112]

@ AdmiralSnake and Reibooi

"Square Enix specialty site FF Reunion has a short summary of a new interview with FFXIII art director Isamu Kamikokuryou. In the interview, Kamikokuryou discusses some of the content that was deleted from the game. Apparently, the FFXIII design team created a number of areas that ended up not going into the final product. How much? Enough to create an additional game, according to Kamikokuryou."

"The content was already running on actual PS3 hardware, it seems, but was left out due to considerations for game volume"

Source: http://andriasang.com/comft...

Edit: @ Reiibooi

XIII had a few cutscenes, from what I hear XIII-2 hardly has that much at all. The gorgeous CGI cutscenes are "one" of the main things you kinda expect FF games to have.

[NukaCola]

@Admiral

Removed nothing from FXIII-2 is not what I said. I said the 15gigs removed from XIII is part of the sequel when they could of had a longer game which was do to the 3 limit DVD rule for 360 as of 2009 and on.

I mean One player as unlike all the other Final Fantasy you play one predominant person while autoplay setting control everyone else. You don't play like you used to. It's very scripted in your party should I say.

[Drabent]

Y~E~P!

[Gamer-Z]

@AdmiralSnake just do a little research and you'll find the article ware the devs themselves admit that because of DVD limitations they had to remove content.

The quote: "we had to cut so much content out that we could make another game with it".

[bakasora]

I can see that many people dislike the game. There must be something wrong.
Do you see that amount of hate for FFX, FFXII? Nope.

[Biggest]

For XII you did. It was called the worst FF ever. I disagree with the hate for XII and XIII. I enjoyed both games and their story lines. I was an avid XI player so the battle system in XII made sense to me. Yes, it can be easy to exploit, but what RPG doesn't have its fair share of exploits (Skyrim Ogmha Infinum, anyone?)? I prefer "linear" RPGs in that games like Skyrim (The only one since Morrowind that I enjoyed) are extremely boring at times. I like having a named character that people recognize. I hate being the totally customized character that has no history, voice, or serious interaction. I like having a main focus that takes precedent over all other quests or missions. I like having "emotional" cutscenes and off kilter encounters. Even at their worst, I prefer FF type games to other RPGs.

Anyway... I don't believe FFXIII deserved the hate it got/gets.

[forevercloud3000]

Defending of FFXIII is just becoming futile to the willingly ignorant.

FFXIII was not the worse game in existance by far, but it has many and I mean MANY shortcomings that left many die hard FF fans feeling robbed.

1. FFXIII first off most DEFINITELY lost massive amounts of content due to the 360. The entire game pipeline was thrown off due to moneyhatting going on behind the scenes. Proof? Look no further than the many interviews with SE during the whole debacle. First they stated 360 version would not start production before PS3 version was done. LIE!because if it had not started how did they finish at the same time and they bumbled that in later interviews.

2. Also FFXIII left out massive amounts of game assets that apparently they thought good enough to use at first but scrapped half way through. Why would they do that? And then mysteriously FFXIII-2 preps are being made and it is made in record time for any game company, let alone SE. This could only be because the assets for the game were already made. Why would they leave out all the towns and so forth that they already made mind you even after their product testers told them they should have left them in? Because they wouldn't be able to fit all that stuff in as well as the massive story elements they NEEDED for the game due to having to build for the lowest common denominator which in this case is the 360.

Its common sense.

But FFXIII's faults do not end their and actually stem far deeper.
-Story was convoluted in all the wrong ways. Majority of it feels like filler.
-Combat was good but stripped all control from you for the most part. Everyone would have liked to of had control over entire Party. Difficulty in the game is masked because it was only hard due to Character AI was often retarded.
-Character development. Total hit and miss in this game.
-Changed almost all the FF game norms and staples for seemingly no good reason. Why the hell was there a brunhildr instead of ifrit?WHY? what was the purpose of that?
the list goes on from there...

[ReservoirDog316]

It was fun honestly. The worst parts are honestly when the map opens up ridiculously (extreme difficulty spike) and the part right after that (~5 hours of a padding side mission that has nothing to do with the story). Other than that, it's a fun game. Not great but not terrible.

It's very similar to FFX honestly. Look at the the maps in FFX. It's very* linear till they open up a huuuuuge field and even a similar leveling system. Obviously not as great as X but yeah, similar.

And at the end of the day, at least it was better than XII.

[TheBlackMask]

Yes

I could list all the reasons why it does but it's been said so many times and it's bound to be repeated on here again by someone else

I like though how the small minority of the FF13 fans actually think the majority of us are just hating on the game for no reason....kind of like it's now cool to like FF13 and hate on the haters.

It was a crap FF game, admit it.

If it was called something like Freedom Crystal Fighters then fair enough but for a FF game, it was just terriable

[Eamon]

Agreed.

[brish]

The majority of people liked the game. You're in the minority.

FF XIII is a much better game than Dragon Age II but you don't hear constant whining in forums about DA II. Yes, the majority of FF XIII fans know you are just hating on the game for no reason.

FF XIII isn't the best FF ever but it's still an above average game.

Check out user reviews:

http://www.amazon.com/Final...

http://www.metacritic.com/g...

[cemelc]

Dude the game wasnt terrible like some ppl make it out to be, but it has some terrible design choices:

It is a tunnel. When you reach gran pulse the game opens is wrong cos after that is a tunnel again.

The combat system is push X and autofight.

Half way on the game you didnt have a full team to fight.

The AI is stupid example of that is when you reach gran pulse and fight the giant dogs (behemont or something) and the characters put in a line for the thing to one shot them.

There was no option for japanese voiceover so i got stuck with the terrible voice acting specially vanille my god my ears still hurt to this day.

You couldnt even talk to npcs cos you cant interact with them.

[LettingGo]

Yes, you do! Most people absolutely HATE Dragon Age II!

[morganfell]

Didn't play it very far did you? Because after the early, early training stages of the game just push X and auto fight - actually auto battle goes away and will not get you through numerous fights.

Without building proper Paradigms and understanding how to use them you simply will not survive. Unless you go away from Auto Battle you aqre in for some repeated and protracted fights even with the understanding and prolific use of Paradigms. It's easy to see through such comments.

You can't survive by button mashing after those early stages. Such comments are solid proof a person either did not play the game very far or else is hating without justification to fit into the minority of gamers who happen to have a louder voice on N4G.

I have also noticed something else that happens among gamers. The nostalgia curve. They hold up games from the past in reverence far too often because they remember them as being better than they were. If such titles were made in current times with simply touched up graphics, They would with only a few exceptions be universally panned. Of course these are the same people that believe Mass Effect 2 was a great RPG full of exploration.

I am likely older than most on this board and even I understand the past is the past. I remember some great games, and a handful still are great. Just not most.

Here are the facts. Most people like FF XIII. I did. Disagree away. Do you really think I care?

Better still, take away my bubbles. Oh wait.

And for the final fact, in January I am picking up the Collector's Edition sequel to a game I and most others enjoyed. Get mad, flail your arms and have a fit. It's Christmas, have two. I'll be gaming.

[WhiteLightning]

What are you talking about, the majority of gamers hated FF13. Your in the minority not us.

"The majority of people liked the game."

Haha, yeah...ok then

Put it this way if there was of majority of people who liked the game then all this hate wouldn't exsist thus making this article non exsistent

@morganfell

"Here are the facts. Most people like FF XIII. I did. Disagree away. Do you really think I care?"

Geez.........do most FF13 fans like to lie to themselfs that most people actually liked the game. Are you so much in deniel that would ignore obvious facts. Yeah you don't care because you know deep down your just lying to us and yourself

[LiViNgLeGaCY]

@Brish

Erm, no. From what I've seen on forums and other sites, the majority hated the game, like myself.

I sure hope you aren't citing sales as thinking why most liked it. Because I bought it, and absolutely hated it.

[cemelc]

@morganfell

I finished the game(PSN ID: CEMELC) check my trophies.

The game has a LOT of troubles i finished the game with a team made of:

1-sinergy comando ravager
2-Medic sentinel Medic
3-Medic sentinel sinergy
4-ravager ravager ravager
5-ravager comando ravager

90% of time you can go with 1 and 5 for a boss switch to 2 or 3 and youll have the game done pushing X and autobattle.

Btw is not like i expend 60 hours tuning the padagrims that was the most basic and obvious combination buffer, caster, tank, and melee dps the only thing needed to understand is that they are not called like that.

You talked about nostalgia but when i see FF13 i see the same game i got in the 90s just with upgraded graphics, the characters Ai is stupid they put themself in the place where the attact will strike might as well be static like in the old games.

At least in the old game i had a good plot to go along and they had the excuse of hardware not being strong enough to control the charaters postions real time now is just they not willing to improve the formula in the most obvios way possible. Im not asking to break the jrpg im asking for them to let position the characters anywhere on the screen thats not to much to ask right?.

You can get the game wont be stopping you but to the very least admit that the battle system y mediocre at best

[Tony P]

@morgan:

Still have me on ignore from that time I was winning an argument with you? Older doesn't always mean wiser.

Anyway, I think the question has already been answered by the game's designers.

FFXIII was not entirely loved or entirely hated. But it sorely deserves both for bringing both a kind of evolution (or devolution) in the series and a bucking of trends set by its contemporaries.

But I don't think it should be loved just because it's the next big FF or hated because it's not open world with dialogue trees.

I personally think it makes a mistake by not going to extremes in either direction. What you get is a game that is not quite familiar, but unwilling to take the next step. For what it's worth, that's what put me off about it.

Merry Christmas.

[Nitrowolf2]

@Morgan

Are you kidding me?

I've completed the game. The battle system is utter garbage and can at most be played by just mashing X. The only time THE ONLY time I had ever had to use some sort of tactic, potions,healing, was when i fought Orpan in any of his form. He was the only guy in the game that ever gave me troubles. If they would have given me a better battle system then yea I would have loved the game.

The sequel looks a ton better for Story, but the battle system looks minor improved. I'll prob. end up picking it up once it reached $25 within the first 2 weeks.

The removal of towns,lack of NPC, anything that made FF what it was is gone in FF13. I'm sorry but any fan (not just directed at you Morgan) stating that it's a FF game is fooling themselves.

[Clarence]

I don't know how old you are, but if your old enough to have had the opportunity to play all the FF before this bull$h!t 13 came out you would know that it's crap. Actually in ff10 they stop letting us explore. I miss the days of traveling by airships like the Highwind in ff7 or the Ragnarok in ff8.

[insomnium2]

@morgan

I have to say this must be the first time ever I disagree with you completely.

FF13 is not a FF game at all in my books. FF12 was neither. FF12 was ok but did not feel like a FF.

Bring back the gameplay and battles of FF7-10 and then we'll talk about a new FF game. Those were some great effing JRPG times with FF7-10 but after that it's been a SHARP downhill. FF13 was downright unplayable to me. Overly annoying characters and the story...? WTF? was it trying too hard or was it trying too hard huh?

Comments like yours is downright insulting to a gamer who spent houndreds of hours playing previous FF games and trying to play them 100% through. Did you kill Omega weapon in FF10? Did you kill Emerald and Ruby weapons in FF7? Killed them all legit? THAT'S what FF is all about....well imo anyway.

[kreate]

i was only 'disappointed' with the game becuz there was the name final fantasy 13.

but if it wasnt for the name, i would of 'hated' the game.

cuz u know... the game sucks.

[Megaman_nerd]

Let's see how many people from the 5-6 millions that bought the first game are gonna buy the sequel then. ;)

[2v1]

ff13 above what other ff game, tell me.they did a intentional mistake whit ff13 they use the ff name.

[RedDead]

Said this a while back

"
Sorry @ below, do I really have to repeat what was wrong with FFXiii? You had two ****ing command for 3 hours into to the game, Auto battle and attack, auto battle resulting in attack. THe battle system was terribly boring until it unlocked 1 chapter before Pulse. There was no breaks from battling. All you did was battle the same battle with 'libra, auto battle and paradigm shift' for 20 hours. The story and characters sucked badly are were Cheesy and annoying(Snow and NORA, "we're so cool, heroes to the end" **** YOU SNOW!), the music was decent but still below just about every FF. The main enemy was an absolute disgrace.

Lets talk minigames. 2, 30 seconds, ride a robot and bash enemies. Second one, chase a mini chocobo around a garden so a cutscene could play of it hiding again. Seriously! WTF was that?

Seriously, appalling game design.

I just don't understand how anyone can see some good in this game. Fair enough decent ending. That's all I could give it/ What I do think is that it had alot of potential. But it just turned so mainstream to appeal to Western audiance. Why? Their inspiration was COD for gods sake, the idea of being on a linear path contantly under pressure from enemies. It does NOT suit an RPG. God, I really hated this game"

That's my opinion of it anyhow. They may aswell taken out movement outside battles for the first 20 hours.

Ddouble down there, people are still hating on it because articles come out defending it. It was an abomination to me.

[Gamer-Z]

I call it the COD effect, Its been happening to a lot of games lately. Its funny though and i don't get this but its been affecting RPG's more than FPS's 0_o

[rabidpancakeburglar]

No it doesn't. Sure it was very linear for most of the game and had some characters that weren't likeable (what FF doesn't) but it had a good story and combat system (despite some people's opinion on them).

There are a lot of people who say that it had a bad story on here but it was a very good story, although at times cheesy as hell. I'm pretty sure that most of the people who didn't like the story didn't play the game long enough for it to make sense.

[TheBlackMask]

"but it had a good story"

LOL

"and combat system"

Double...LOL

"I'm pretty sure that most of the people who didn't like the story didn't play the game long enough for it to make sense."

Oh no...people played it, it was just crap and complicated. It made no sense, everytime something happened in the game you had to open up the the Datalog to read the things which you wern't told about to get the full picture, even then it was like "Whaaaaa".

Why should someone have to keep opening in game datalogs to understand the on going story. You've never had to do that before in a FF game because the storys were actually good.

I understand you like it but don't lie and say it had a good story and especialy a good battle system which was also crap...yeah we all like our battles to be played out for us most of the time, rely on luck and button mash. Oh and before you say "Well don't have auto battle on" you basicaly needed it most of the time or you wouldn't be able to get through it.

[rabidpancakeburglar]

If you actually played enough of the game then you never had to open the datalog, I know I never did in my first play through as everything comes together. I thought that it did have a good story, maybe you didn't but that's your opinion and not mine.

Some peoples opinions will differ on the battle system and I think it was great. Sure you can spend your time button mashing but the point about not having the battle system on is valid (not your point I mean). You only need to stick to the autobattle if you're aiming to get 5 stars in battles.

[Bimkoblerutso]

The story seemed like a joyless, melodramatic parody of itself and the gameplay, though new and fresh, just wasn't as interesting as past games. It seemed like a shift away from strategy and more toward tactics.

Plus then there's the whole 30 some-odd hours of hall walking you have to go through before the game opens up...that definitely didn't help things.

[Eamon]

Okay let's be fair here. It's one thing to say it had a good battle system. It's almost 50.50 when it comes to fan reaction to FF13 battle system.

But the story, there is a complete landslide majority who agree it was terrible.

[rabidpancakeburglar]

There is also a complete landslide majority who say that they never bothered to finish the game.

[SuperLupe]

Hard to finish a game when the story is utter crap.

I have finished every FF game since FF6. That said I finished FF12 just for the sake of it. I couldnt endure another borefest with FF13 after FF12. And Im not even a FF13 hater, just longing for a FF game with a story like back in the PS1 era.

I'll definatly be getting FF13-2 since they seem to have improved on every aspect of the game (even the ones that didnt bother such as the battle system). Looks like its the what FF13 should have been from the start.

[WhiteLightning]

@SuperLupe

What are you on about, they havent improved hardly anything in the sequel...even the battle system is roughly the same.

Sqaure WANTS you to think they've listened and improved the game but they havent...it's just to make suckers, much like yourself, buy the game again.

When do Sqaure ever listen, be honest.....sorry I mean when do they ever ACT after they've listened......NEVER. If they did we would be up to a FF9 remake by now with FF7/8 out the door.

[Megaman_nerd]

what story? A collection of pep talks, unnecessary drama and then all of a sudden: "let's go kill the Orphan, that will solve everything!". The end. lol

They never even try to explain how how they turned back from being monsters at the end of the game and then how Vanille and Fang saved Cocoon. From where their powers came from since they weren't l'cie anymore and lost all the eidolons and stuff.

FFXIII sucks. Characters suck. Story suck. Battle system suck. The pace suck. This game sucks, admit it.

[2v1]

c mon man what story

[Cocozero]

It only got hate because it went multiplatform. I can promise you if it was the same game but exclusive to the PS3 fans wouldn't be hating on it as much even if it got the same scores.

Just look how everyone here is excited about FFvsXIII without any info about it, its only because its exclusive. When it gets announced as multi platform (which we all know it will) watch how everyone will turn on it, i can promise you that.

[tigertron]

No. It got hate because it failed to live up to its potential.

Like I've said a hundred times before on this subject. FFXIII is a GOOD game. Its a GOOD Final Fantasy, but it could have been so much more. I think alot of us were expecting more from SE after watching the fantastic 2006 trailer. 4 years of development should have produced a better game.

The combat system that we ended up with was pretty good, but the 2006 one looked way better. Also, the game was incredibly linear. Graphics aside, it didn't feel like a game that couldn't have been made last gen. Plus the boss battles suck.

I'm only at the amusement park because I couldn't be bothered to finish it, but I am tempted to try again.

[Bimkoblerutso]

In the game's defense, it does open up and become much more fun after about the 30 hour mark. I agree with what you said in general though.

[SuperLupe]

Can I have your take on GT5 please ? Just curious.

As for me FF13 was a dissapointement because the story was crap and didnt give me any desire to go till the end. The battle system was ok and it was a little more linear than an average FF game but nothing to go go bezerk about.

[k2d]

*yawn*

Beyond the graphics, FFXIII was shit -compared to other FF's-.

Doesn't even matter whether it's because of developers going multiplat or not.

[brish]

Q. Does Final Fantasy XIII really deserve all the hate?
A. No

It wasn't the game that Final Fantasy fans were expecting but it's not a bad game.

[Spenok]

Very much agreed. Definitely not the best FF out there. But still ultimately fun in the end.

[Hicken]

Thank you and bubbles to you two for being competent about this.

[Ddouble]

It deserves to be critisised for it's flaws but the hate is just overboard imo. It came out 2 years ago and people are still hating on it.

Also what annoys me is people who try to overlook the positive points of the game.

[PSK22]

Honestly, I actually liked it but it was definitely not my favorite FF. Nothing comes close to FF 7 to 10.

[Biggest]

I think that FF IV-VI come close. I love VII, IX, and X. I love V and VI. Three loves to two is pretty close.

[sealion88]

It was a bad Final Fantasy in Final Fanatasy standards. There wasn't really a good soundtrack, memorable characters, long boring cut scenes, limited map exploration, limited sidequests, no towns, no npc interaction and the list goes on. Clearly it was going the wrong directly and if the fans didn't speak up, FF13-2 wouldn't have made all those improvements.

[Capt-FuzzyPants]

Nope. It wasn't really all that bad if you understood the story. The gameplay was pretty good IMO. And it became less linear towards the end. I enjoyed it.

[Unlimax]

Trashy Ports , so many HD cutsceneses , Short , Not open world , Stupid overpowered Adamantoises , and last but not least storyline isn't Understandable .

[Unlimax]

OH MY GOSH I FORGOT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING .. battles Rewards ( such as "Gill" wich is pretty important and weapons ) i wonder Why some FF Fans doesn't talk about that before !

[Capt-FuzzyPants]

How is FF13 short? First playthrough is 55 to 60 hours on average. If you do all the extra missions it is over 100 hours. Would you rather have no challenge in the game and have every enemy be easy? The story is actually pretty good you just have to follow it.

I also didn't like how there was no gil btw.

[Megaman_nerd]

all the extra missions are all about killing a bunch of monsters in the post-game. And it takes hours because some of them are really hard so you have to grind like crazy for hours and hours. If you find that fun then you have issues.

The true is that I beat the main story in less than 30 hours and most people I've seen playing FFXIII-2 has beaten in just 1 day which mean that neither game is that long.

[Biggest]

How was there no gil? In what game do you expect to get gil from just killing things? That would be plain pointless. You get gil from quests and items. Try playing the FULL game and you'll see where gil and items come from. Complain about the story or whatever else you hate. Don't make up random complaints that are 100% untrue.

[Matrix2k]

fanboys - .000001 percent

The majority of people loved the game

Great metacritic and reviews

[LettingGo]

Not true at ALL! I don't know a single human being who liked that game.

[Matrix2k]

I liked it, 5+ million people liked it, reviewers liked it.

Hell ff 13 was reviewed on average higher than dragon age 2, dungeon siege 3, or any number of other rpgs released on the ps3 recently.

[bozebo]

Dragon age 2 & DS3 suck even worse that's why...

Who are the 5+ million people who liked FF13?

And most reviews are BS too incase you somehow didn't notice.

[Nitrowolf2]

"5+ million people liked it,"

where did you get that number from? Sales? Just because it sold that much doesn't mean everyone liked it.

Also what do you mean by Fanboys?

I mean they are on the 13th FF game. Do you really think that the Majority of buyers are new comers? BTW a fanboy would defend the game with his life they had to, not hate on it.

It's funny how I saw the majority of FF sites and forums filled with nothing but this game sucks thread all over their thread walls. And these weren't just plain trolls either.

The story should have been better, their should have been open world, the battle system shouldn't have been to cater people who literally have a vegetable for a brain, and there is just so much more wrong with it.

I shouldn't have to know that past FF games have had a lot, and I mean a lot more content packed into it the FF13. The fact that I could open world, play a bunch of mini games, interact with tons of NPC, have open world, a battle system that actually makes me work to beat someone, a better story is just stupid. At the expense of graphics is all that cost to.

[Inception]

FF 13 is the 1st main FF that i'm not play it till the end. I borrow FF 13 from my friend and play it till chapter 9, just to see if it's true what some people said "It will only BECOME better and better if you played it long enough". After that, i gave it back to my friend because it's too f*kin boring.

And as a FF fans myself, i believed that FF 13 is fail when i compared it to other main FF. Useless summon, a downgrade Sphere-grid, paradigm shift that made you vulnerable in 2-3 seconds for enemy attack when you change to other job, etc.

But the biggest FF 13 flaw to me is the story. No memorable villain (darn, i missed Kefka!!!) and uninteresting main characters. Lol, i've even like Steiner (FF 9) more than the noisy b*tch Snow who always screaming "SERAHHHHHHHH!!!" every f*kin minutes -_-

For me, the only good thing from FF 13 is the graphic. Even though the CGI isn't much memorable like past FF, specially FF 10 who had a lot of amazing scene (Tidus playing Blitzball when sin attack, Yuna's dancing, etc).

[LettingGo]

Why are we still talking about this game? White Knight Chronicles 1 & 2 are the underappreciated JRPG's this gen.

Also, why does everyone think FFXIII has good graphics?!? Even when it came out they were mediocre, at best.

[bozebo]

What about Lost Odyssey? It's certainly underappreciated.

[Capt-FuzzyPants]

FF13 graphics are better than most other games.

[Tanir]

doesnt deserve the hate, ff12 was far far far worse. sure it was more open but the story characters, gameplay were all balls. Game that lets you beat bosses without using the controller or being in the room = fail (gambit system)

[bozebo]

I take it you didn't play it much.

Some of the battles were genuinely very hard while some where far too easy (which did sadly include the concluding battles)

Like all FF games, your victory is due to good prep, it just happened to involve gambits. FF12's main problem was the characters and story holes. Which 13 did a lot worse still.

[LiViNgLeGaCY]

I hear that a lot. Oddly, I must be one of the few that really, really loved FFXII. Enjoyed every second of it.

[SugarSoSweet]

FF13 deserves to get even more hate if u ask me that game sucks played it for 10 hours then got bored

[SweatyFlorida]

No, but it doesn't deserve any praise either. It was at best an average game, which is why so many people are mad because Final Fantasy's before were always good. It failed to meet expectations, and that's where hate kicks in.

[iMaim]

Well not all the hate ...
ALL THE HATE AND MORE

[CanadianTurtle]

The title is misleading. It's saying "Does FF13 deserve all this hate?" Its trying to look sympathetic towards the game. And thats why in the comments you see people saying things like "Nah, its not bad" because they feel sorry for the game. Don't let the title mislead you.

This game deserves the hate. I have played it, and let me tell you, the story is ridiculous. The characters are 2D and over generic. After playing great games like FF6, FF7, etc. This game was terrible in comparison. Pretty graphics don't make up for bad story and characters in my opinion

[bozebo]

Yes

That is all

[Seventh_Blood_Reborn]

F@ck yeah!

I am a HUGE fan of Final Fantasy series, I loved them all ( also if not all of them were masterpieces ) but FFXIII wich was really terrible under all the aspects but the technical department: story, characters ( I hated them all with sincere passion, the first time it happens with a FF ), soundtracks ( just as shallow, pathetic and whimpering as the characters ), game design ( no cities in a 2011 JRPG is very innovative, nice corridor design, good work SE! /S ), battle system ( push X, push X, wait ... push X, exciting ... ) ...

Not only I think this is by far the worst Final Fantasy Ever, but it is the worst AAA ( intended as budget ) title of this entire generation on all systems.

As a player who passed through 5 different console generation, and as a Final Fantasy series lover, I really don' t understand how this game can be confused with a game that has some real quality.

I just know that SE should be ashamed of a such thing.
I won' t buy FFXIII 2 and in future I will be more careful with buying SE games ( the FFXIII reviews clearly shows that videogame journalism is no more reliable, if it ever was ).

[Menchi]

No, it doesn't. It was a GOOD game, not a GOOD Final Fantasy, but a good game none the less.

There is a difference between a game not meeting the calibre of its name, but, the sort of hate I saw, was people stating it was a horrible game, which in actual fact, it isn't. It was an 8/10 game, which, in all honesty, is FINE!

The only reason it got as much hate as it did, was because it wasn't as good as it "should have been" but that is just player expectations, and yes, maybe in some small way they're justified, but not the level of hate, especially from people who aren't even fans of FF, or RPG's in general, I mean, they got a poor FF game, but a good RPG and were disappointed...

They'd have probably downplayed the game if it was good as the rest of the series.

Anyway, ranted long enough, simple answer, No, it didn't. Brand name shouldn't be the reason a game is "Great" or "Rubbish"

[Wintersun616]

It does deserve some hate, but some comments do go a bit over the top. IMO it's not a good game, but I wouldn't say it's a completely bad game either. It falls somewhere in between where there's pretty much an equal amount of things I liked in it and things I hated.

[Mag10]

I bet if it wasn't even called Final Fantasy, people wouldn't hate on it as much.

[Capt-FuzzyPants]

Exactly I've been saying that for a while.

[jthamind]

the funny thing is that for all the people saying it was a good game, or it didn't deserve the hate, those people don't actually say what's GOOD about the game. they just defend against the bad things that other people say about it.

seriously, somebody tell me what's good about Final Fantasy XIII.

the gameplay? meh. it's honestly not good, and it's only challenging if you plan on getting five stars in all the tougher battles. but even then, there's only about 5 battles total in the game that are actually challenging. so if you just want to play through the story, then you're going to be bored to tears with the gameplay.

the story? not really. it was ok at best, but it was horribly delivered. the plot and all that were ok. but seriously, the game just plops you down in the middle of a huge conflict and starts spouting all types of terms we don't know and talks about the story like we actually understand it so far, then gives us books worth of shit to read. that's NOT how you tell a good story, folks. that is not good exposition.

the characters? nah. Sahz (sp?) was the only GOOD character. the rest were either ok (Lightning, Fang) or just shit (Vanille, Snow, Hope).

the graphics? ok, they were fine, but i didn't buy FFXIII for graphics.

the music? again, it was fine (not one of the best FF soundtracks, but very good).

so let's see...the story and gameplay, which are hands down the most important parts of a FF game, were not good. the game makes you walk down endless hallways, which is not good. oh, and FYI...telling people that game opens up after 30 fucking hours is NOT a good selling point.

and yes, i've played through the entire game. i even platinum'd it. so don't give me the "you haven't beaten it or played it" shit.

it was a decent game at best. it deserves the hate, because FF fans want a lot more than "a decent game at best."

[Inception]

99% agree with you ;)

but if you don't mind, a little corection for this part:
"so let's see...the story and gameplay, which are hands down the most important parts of a FF game, were not good."

Imho, not just story and gameplay, music is also one of the most important aspect of FF games. I can stand dozens of hours just to listening "Otherworld", "Eyes on Me", or "One-winged Angel" playing in the background menu. But for FF 13, it really lacks memorable ost and that is one of the reason why i can't stand to long when playing 13. I hope Yoko Shimomura can replace Nobuo Uematsu even though they have diffrent styles in music...

[Hicken]

What I liked? Here you go.

The story: As much as many of you want to make it out as convoluted, it's actually extremely easy to follow and very coherent. The part that's tough is that you get tossed into the fray and things both past and present become more apparent to you the further into the game you go. Barthandelus' age old plot is exceptional, having groomed an entire society for his own purposes, including the main characters.

The characters: While I admit I didn't like everyone- particularly Hope- the primary cast was solid. And, speaking frankly, if you didn't like Sazh, you weren't even paying attention. He's one of my favorite FF characters of all time. And the dynamic between Fang and Vanille is important and interesting. Lightning herself, while being somewhat stereotypical, still plays her role of leader well, being the level-headed foil to Snow's overzealousness.

The music: It's not Uematsu, but I wasn't expecting that, either. What I expect is for the music to fit the world (two, in this case), and it does. It's not on the same level that Uematsu's music would have reached, but it does its job.

The gameplay: Well, it's gameplay. Controlling your character outside of battle wasn't as free as in XII, but felt more natural than in X, for whatever that's worth to you.

The battle system: To be honest, I'm still up in the air on this one. It's not the first game where I wasn't able to control my other characters (I've played and beat all seven .hacks, for example) so that wasn't a big deal to me. People complain about the Auto-Battle, but it's really as simple as turning it off. Still, I'm not as good at using Paradigms as my roommate; if there were some way to battle it out between his party and mine, he'd destroy me. But it's unique, comprehensive, and best of all, it works. As I said, not necessarily my favorite, but not horrible.

Decent games do not deserve hate. FF fanboys have been wanting to go back to VII for years now, and XIII is about as far away from that as you can get; then a bunch of people who aren't even fans of the franchise- and often not even of the genre- hopped on to make this look and sound worse than it is.

[Darrius Cole]

I know I am jumping in late. Perhaps so late the no one will respond. But I have to touch a on few comments made here.

Comment #1 - jthamind said...
"so let's see...the story and gameplay, which are hands down the most important parts of a FF game, were not good."

My Point on Comment #1
Story and gameplay that the two most important parts on any game, not just Final Fantasy. The truth is either one of these on its own can be carry a game. For instance, Ninja Gaiden Sigma's(1) story sucks but the game-play is PERFECT, therefore we rave over the game. Virtua Fighter has ZERO story but the gameplay is the best of any game I have ever played, therefore the fans rave over the game. Heavy Rain is basically a bunch of quick-time events, but the story rocks, so we rave over the game.

The best games have great story AND great gameplay. GOWIII...great story and great gameplay.

Comment #2 - Hicken said "The story: As much as many of you want to make it out as convoluted, it's actually extremely easy to follow and very coherent."

My point on comment #2
You can follow the story if you read the new datalogs as soon as they appear, that is what I did. However, the story is not good because it is not reasonable or complete. I also say that it is 'incoherent' because it required a plot device in order to make it work. Even then the plot device add new questions to the already existing questions.

What was that they happened to Sid Raines?
Why could they kill Barthandelus the last time? The first two times he came back to life. Why was this time different? Why did everybody but Fang and Vanille come out of stasis? Just because you understand the story doesn't mean it is good.

[listenkids]

I've 100% finished all FF titles to date, including the likes of Yiazmat in 12 and Penance in 10.
I couldn't bring myself to finish FF13, a poorly written story which didn't bring me in or care for any of the characters, annoying kids bring even more hate to the game, no towns? Seriously.. lack of exploration and no.. "hey run around this shit field" didn't cut it. Bring on Versus 13 and save the 13th Final Fantasy. god Bless

[CLOUD1983]

"Does Final Fantasy XIII really deserve all the hate?"

eh.. NO! because.. it deserves much moAr!

I hope I cover u :)

[D3mons0ul]

Hate? No, no game deserves the "hate" people tend to mindlessly spew about the boards. People are stupid and overreact. The behavior I see on a daily basis within this community would have been unheard of 10 years ago.

Hate no, disappointment yes.

[Whackedorange]

I dont hate the game but i dont have much left for the company behind it anymore. It have sold its soul to the devil.

[helghast102]

People are still buttpained over XIII?
Whatever, everyone hates the "new" Final Fantasy, when XIII-2 rolls around everyone will hate it and love XIII.
When Versus XIII comes everyone will hate that and love XIII-2.
When FFXV comes around everyone will love Versus and hate.. you see where I'm going with this.
SO COOL AND EDGY TO HATE THE NEW STUFF

[D3mons0ul]

Actually when Versus XIII comes, everyone who loves XIII-2 will most likely love Versus and might even turn on XIII-2.

It's more likely that Versus XIII will be renamed to XV anyway.

You got it all wrong.

[Bleach]

The only things i didn't like were

1. Fang's god awful design, seriously one of the worst FF characters EVER.

And secondly there should have been a money trick similar to the one in FF8, grinding became very monotonus, you have 2 options, fight turtles for an ignot drop that was not guaranteed, or fight for perfume drops and both were boring and dull.

[josephayal]

AMAZING GAME with a Horrible BATTLE System

[NeXXXuS]

The battle system was one of the GOOD things about the game. Linear gameplay and boring dungeons killed the game immensely.

[FFXI101]

I don't hate the game, I just didn't like it. To me it was one of the worst FF games ever!

[Godmars290]

Sqaure certainly does for compromising the game's development.

[BigDollarZoe954]

Hate is such a strong word i would i least say disliked IMO i enjoyed the game and it was real good which is brave to say with the haters on this site not one of Square Enix best i admit that waiting on the sequel but really waiting on versus

[GraveLord]

No, it doesn't deserve all the hate.
Its a great JRPG. Not the best Final Fantasy but its still good.

[FinaLXiii]

I dont hate FF13...versus :D

[TheMutator]

Deserve hate and more!!!!!!!!

[NeXXXuS]

The game doesn't deserve the hate. Square Enix deserves it and so does the 360. The game should have just been exclusive for the PS3. Then it wouldn't have been dumbed down by the 360's DVD format disc capacity.

[Pledius]

I am an hardcore FF fan. Though the game was disappointment compare to previous FF games I don't think it deserved all the hates I saw.

here are few things I did not like about this game:
-way too long "tutorial" type battles. people who actually beat this will realize that almost through HALF way through storyline it was still popping some "tutorial" battle where they were teaching people how to play.
-no open world :( they should have atleast made it like FFX where you can go anywhere from 1 point(airship) but they made this bizzare teleport stuff to go through in FF12. it was just annoying
-corny ass, cheesy, embarrassing as hell dialogues. my god jesus did they target 7 year olds as main audience in this game? some part I just had to skip. it was just... ugh...

though what I seem to disagree with a lot of haters is the battle system. I think the battle system was pretty good actually. it was more real time and you could actually time things for more chain effect. many people say they did not like auto battle and I agree.

what I disagree with them is that if you don't HAVE to(you can actually CHOOSE) use auto battle and just keep manually selecting skills. how does auto battle count as a negative? if you don't like auto battle all you have to do is not use it. they never forced you to use it. If you decided to use it then was your own choice and you can't blame the game for it.

[Runa216]

Final Fantasy XIII deserves all the hate it gets and more; not because it's different from what people expected, not because it's linear, but because it's a bad game that is acting as poster child for the 'style over substance' generation.

Lame, flat characters.
Poorly told story (on an admittedly impressive world)
Lack of customization on your characters
Poor equipment upgrade system
TOO linear (linear is fine, this was too much)
NO additional content, just the story and hunts
therefore no replay value
Uninspired, boring-assed score
Technically impressive but creatively devoid graphics
forgettable, boring-assed villain

Basically it failed in every way, and it had NOTHING to do with Final Fantasy. Cid was a side character, chocobos were barely in it, etc. Final Fantasy has always been successful thanks to its blend of western and japanese sensibilities, and this failed at it. Short, linear, repetitive, no side content, nothing at all. at least in previous final fantasies you had shops to go to, ways to customize your character, sidequests and minigames out the wazoo, this game had none of that.

Even if you took the "Final Fantasy" Name out of it, it's still be mediocre but not poor, but the fact that it does say Final Fantasy makes it a pathetic excuse for a great series.

[Tenkay23]

If this game was called anything else but final fantasy it would have got rave reviews. But FF fans expect the same tired formula every game. They want all FF's to be revolutionary like FF7 or FF10 was.

This was my first FF I finished completely. I loved it. The linearity fit with the story of the game. They didn't have long to live, why would they waste their time talking to NPC's and exploring towns?

The battle system was fun and the best in the series IMO. It was quick paced and required a lot of strategy. My only complaint was you could only control the lead character in battle instead of the entire party of 3. But apparently that will be fixed in XIII-2.

This game doesn't deserve the hate for being different from past FF's

[entitygm]

I've played all the FF's from 1 to 12, even X-2 which had a great battle system, good enough to offset the dreadful story. I just don't understand the argument people keep making that "FF13 is a good game, it's just not up to FF standards"

No, it really isn't. It's a pathetic final fantasy and a horrid game. Run down this hallway, press x repeatedly, watch a cutscene while characters whine, then go look up definitions of wtf they're talking about. Run down another corrider, fight palette-swapped monsters, watch another cutscene and maybe an FMV, more whining.

It didn't qualify as a good game by any stretch. Combat was somewhat involved with paradigm swapping but that required spending a completely insane amount of time in menus - and it kept forgetting the sets every times teams swapped; which is all the time for the first 10 hours at least.

If it weren't called Final Fantasy it would get MORE hate, not less.

[SnipeySnake]

I didn't like it, it needed towns and the battle system was horrible.

[The Rock Bottom]

By the standards of the Final Fantasy brand? Yeah! This game does deserve the hate that its getting. Was it a good game? Sure. Why not. Was it a good Final Fantasy? Heck no! I practically made my self finish it thinking that the story would make more sense as I continued through the game...sadly it never did. Then on top of that, Verses gets held back for another helping of a Final Fantasy a majority of the fan base hated? SE needs to tight'n up!

[Lynux]

I have a great impression the majority of people who exert an excessive amount of sheer bitter dissappointment or hatred towards this game have Cainotophobia/Neophobia...

I myself have played this and its true what the majority that say Reach the 20-30 hr mark however i reached it in 15-17 hrs. for those who say to me you haven't played FFX or FF7... or what ever i have tho i like them all equally because of the intrigues it brings to me new ideas concepts.. and that is what imo sequels are about.

Not how it shuld be the same. Because from what im hearing you saying in other words "Lets keep it OLD" now you see OLD is the key word.. if no one has noticed.. a game cannot stay OLD OR ORIGINAL...

If you wish for it old fine go ahead. why not walk up to square enix yourself and say HEY I WANT YOU TO CHANGE IT BACK TO THE ORIGINAL SERIES.

If you hate it so much time will tell whether u buy X13-2, if you do buy it however you have just lied to yourself.

Oh i know i'll be bombarded with reasons why it sucks and that im a noob for saying words that don't make sense or however. Let's see how many fools will respond to this messege.