Why Final Fantasy 13 is Better Than Final Fantasy 15

The newest mainline game in the franchise – Final Fantasy 15 (FFXV) – is widely loved and considered a fantastic game, and to be quite honest, I have no idea why. I feel as though FFXV is much more guilty of the aspects that fans criticize FFXIII for.

[Chaosdreams]

The problem here is FF15 is something different to everyone. This comes from the fact that the game was released to an audience still wishing for what Versus once promised, a dark story reminiscent of Romeo and Julliet. It didn't take long once people got into FF15 to see that the pacing/plot was all over the place - but what was there was good, good but different, and that difference continued to shift and change with patches and dlc drops.

The open world aspect wasn't bad but it also wasn't cutting edge, clearly showing weakness when compared to other games such as Witcher 3. It left, like many aspects of the game, a desire for more. More story. More consistency. More things to do that made sense to the structure.

But where FF15 made faults, it also presented a unique experience. My love for it came from the time spent in the sun, doing those random trivial hunts because of the dialogue between the bros along with the photos taken being revealed at camp. It felt like a journey, one that could go on forever (of course it couldn't - not enough variety).

I always hoped they'd patch the story with adequate cut scenes, but as time went on it felt like fan theories filled in the gap, which love or hate, furthered the passion but also made the obvious plot wholes and weak character development (Luna being one) impossible to ignore.

FF15 as a concept had all the makings of what could've been a masterpiece. It isn't. But is it worse than FF13? All I can say is, one of them gave me 90+ hours of enjoyable playtime (flawed) and an ending that hit me in the feels, the other was a hallway.

[SterlingSilver]

I pretty much adress everything you just mentioned in my article :P

[Chaosdreams]

"Also, what is so fun about going to the same kind of towns, talking to the same generic NPC’s, and going to the same generic shops to get better gear?"

I was mostly addressing this point. The dialogue, music and photo album made the open world enjoyable in a unique way.

[mikeslemonade]

13 > 12

[LightofDarkness]

HARD disagree. 12 was actually fun to play and I appreciated the more mature, politically driven tone. 13 was an auto-played hallway sim about emo kids.

[deckardreplicant]

You did a good job in explaining sir! +1

[UltraNova]

Excellent run down there Chaos.

FF13's Lightning was the far more developed character since most of the focus was on her while FF15's Noctis never reached a deep level of development. As a matter of fact I've found other characters more interesting than him.

As for the world its self, I have to admit that 15's world was the least .. fantastic of them all. It was like an alternative Earth. Didn't feel that FF magic.

Finally 15 felt incomplete. It had an average, short story as far as FF games go.

I can safely say that 13 was the more complete FF game.

[Cyb3r]

I think the story was better on FF13 but FF15 had better gameplay although IMO 70% of the gameplay in FF15 was mostly grinding. Although FF13 was linear I think Square should focus more on the story in future games, Although FF7 and FF8 were linear that wasnt necessarily a bad thing. FF7's gameplay was the mostly the main quest and was still one of the best Final Fantasy games, I hate it that nowadays RPGs focus more on side quests rather than the main story. Why not make the main story the longest part of an RPG and side quests as an option like FF7

[SterlingSilver]

I think the gameplay of 15 was empty and never came close to providing a challenge :P

[nommers]

If you’re going into the ff series for a challenge then you’ve goofed. The most favored ff games were pretty easy in 6-10. If you’re such a hard gamer looking for a challenge or whatever then you probably died less than a handful of times between 6-10 in the main story. So little so that there might as well not have been an option to die.

[nommers]

Funny enough though, 13 may have been the most overall challenging because if the party leader dies it was game over. That being said, most come into the series for the story or just the combination of everything else.

As for xv’s gameplay being empty..thats just flat out wrong considering all of your options and the variety of effective attacks you can pull off at the right time. If you have a tech available you should always use it even if just to get the ability stronger. Element attacks require much more emphasis on distance than past ff games in order to get the largest amount of clustered enemies possible and without harming yourself. You also can’t spam elemency as it requires a cool down period. While you might not ever reach a game over screen, you can’t win either if you don’t try as you’ll be losing HP quite often against some of the enemies in the game. Your movement is greatly hindered past a certain threshold of lost HP. Then there’s the status effects. Specific weapon types now deal extra damage to enemies or lesser which is new to the series as far as I know so changing weapon types has an advantage.

You can also perform different weapon attacks with different weapon types depending on your directional joy Con input holding up, left/right, or down. Lances for instance have a nice and powerful rapid fire attack when holding down on the joy con while holding the attack button. Great swords while holding down have a charge attack.

Finally, all the weapons have weighted impact to them. Knives allow you to move very quickly with usually weaker attacks while great swords can slow your attack speed down but with more powerful attacks to unleash.

[pietro1212]

Same could be said for the battle system in XIII. You can just use auto battle most of the game. Also it's like like the franchise was known for it's difficulty aside from Tactics.

[rainslacker]

FF13 game play really shined in the harder fights...like beyond the story based boss fights of the game. Otherwise, it was pretty weak, and more akin to button mashing 90% of the time. But on those harder fights, where you had to use the system the way it was intended to beat those fights, then it was a lot of fun.

FF13 story was better than 15 all around, it was just poorly told, and the characters were kind of bland.

That said, I'm curious where the author got the idea that this game was widely loved and considered a fantastic game. That was never the sentiment that I got from anyone.

[nitus10]

Like Final Fantasy 12, FF13 when programmed right did not require any button mashing.

FF13 like FF12 also allowed you to auto-battle against lower difficulty enemy although when battling a boss or difficult enemy you did have to monitor the battle and select the appropriate paradigm quickly since you could not pause the battle. On the other hand, FF12 did allow for fine-grained settings using boolean algebra but you did have the option to pause and also to go turned based.

BTW. I do have FF15 since I got the media cheaply, however, I am still playing Dark Souls 3 and Horizon Zero Dawn.

[SterlingSilver]

I'm the author, and since the news that Tabata was resigning from the FFXV team, I've seen MANY people calling XV an "absolute masterpiece" on Twitter. I think it's pretty clear in my article that I disagree lol

[rainslacker]

@nitus

I pretty much just pressed X through most of the regular game, and maybe spent more time doing paradigm shifts on boss battles when button mashing became problematic. The auto battle was pretty reliable though, although sometimes it didn't always use the proper spells that enemies were weak to, and battles moved to fast to really select things the way you wanted them too. I didn't hate the battle system, I just felt it was squandered through most of the game.

The post game stuff, and some of the harder enemies on pulse were a lot of fun to play though, and you really had to pay attention, and that's where I really liked the battle system.

FF15 isn't really bad, its just not that great. Battle system was pretty good, but more akin to an action RPG where you could pause the action to select commands. Sometimes it could become a bit tiresome though. It was less button mashy once you got to mid-level enemies, but most fights played out pretty much the same, and boss fights were kind of few and far between.

@Sterling

Then that's something new IMO. While I've seen people who like it well enough, I have never once seen anyone call it a masterpiece.

[-Foxtrot]

Final Fantasy 15 is better despite it's problems however if it wasn't for Final Fantasy 13, Final Fantasy 15 would have been a bigger problem for me.

The main thing I use to defend Final Fantasy 15 is "well...it's better then Final Fantasy 13"

[SterlingSilver]

I mean, that's not really an argument lol :P

[kalkano]

Definitely. FF13 is a decent, though very flawed game. FF15 is an atrocious train wreck that had no business having "Final Fantasy" in the title to begin with.

[InKnight7s]

Princess got out to the world with 3 friends to save the world sounds very "Final Fantasy" to me than linear L'Cie.

[rainslacker]

I never thought i'd see the day when you'd say that FF13 was decent. I'm pretty sure we've had many a discussion on that topic. :)

Although, to be fair, your biggest gripe was the move away from turn based mechanics, and I don't really recall anything else you've said about it after all these years.

Hoping to start VC4 in earnest this weekend.

[kalkano]

I think you're thinking of someone else. I've always thought 13 was decent. It was still Turn-Based, but it's battle system made extremely poor use of the fact that it was Turn-Based (only controlling one character, while the other two were AI).

[rainslacker]

Fair enough. It's been a long while since we discussed anything JRPG related, and most of our arguments were about turn based games. I honestly didn't know what you felt about the game.

And yeah, i thought the paradigm system was good on the hard fights, because you had to use it the way it was intended, but for the rest of the game, you could essentially mash X, and maybe occasionally use the switching system the way it was intended, but it was much more lenient. I didn't even really learn how to use the system until post-game, because it wasn't necessary, but came to like it when I did. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I knew more about it early on, but the game didn't do a good job of really explaining it....which seems to be common with a lot of games nowadays. Tales games for instance have become overly complex with not only game play, but Vesperia was an utter concophony of stuff to learn, and most of it didn't make sense until you really looked harder on how to do it, and it was just a pain to get what you wanted anyways....and one good upgrade could mess up another thing which was also good, so it became a chore....but I digress.:)

[Silly gameAr]

That's not saying much. In my opinion, X was the last good FF game. 12 was decent. Enjoyed it a lot more than 13 for sure.

[bigmalky]

Wow. Downvoted for the truth.

World of Final Fantasy is better than both XIII and XV, and it's not even a mainline game.

[PapaBop]

Final Fantasy 14 (ARR/Heavensward/Stormblood) says "hello" obviously not everyone's cup of tea but by far the best FF games released in the last decade.

[pietro1212]

True

[SterlingSilver]

I think a lot of people are getting the wrong idea. I never once state in my article that 13 is a great game. I say that I think it's a better game than 15, stating how it is more guilty of the things 13 is criticised for.

[Godmars290]

When speaking of FF13, do you mean the first one, or all three. You should see the immediate issue if the latter.

Though, both are crap.

[SterlingSilver]

I just mean the first game. I really didn't like the second, but Lightning Returns was a bit better than it.

[Poopmist]

Maybe FF 13-2 but not 13

[Lionalliance]

FF13 still sucks more though.

[TheGoodestBoi]

Having played final fantasy 13 for the first time recently on my ps3 I have to agree. Final fantasy 15 may have been better if the whole story was completed and given as one package. It might be better now after the content and updates but the problem is I had long since moved on. The second problem I had was the fairly empty feeling open world. Might as well be more linear like FF13 if the world is no fun to explore

[SterlingSilver]

Thank you, this is exactly what I address in my article. I wouldn't have such a problem with FF15 if it didn't feel so empty. Even every town feels the same, which yes, is akin to older Final Fantasy games, but RPG's have changed nowadays, they need to put more effort.

[Elda]

I liked FFXV but it story was a mess,including the lackluster OST & I hated how they implemented the summons,there were only about 5 & you couldn't summon them at your disposal other than that I enjoyed it for the gameplay. Now I loved FFXIII!!! Though the story is convoluted I got the gist of it & the game does has it flaws. I loved the production,graphics,the amazing battle system,Lightning,Fang & Sazh & the amazing OST. It's one of my top tier FF games & I've played most but the MMO's.I would love a PS4 remaster with Pro enhanced features.

[SterlingSilver]

I totally agree. I really disliked the summons in 15 because they pretty much won you every fight instantly. The summons in 13 were helpful, but against tough enemies, pretty much did nothing. The story may be hard for some to understand in 13, but you had the datalog to read if there was a certain aspect that you didn't understand. I would also love a remaster, so so much. Thank you for reading. If you want more of my thoughts on Final Fantasy, follow me on twitter @sterlingguil

[Elda]

Absolutely.

[NeoGamer232]

I think pretty much every Final Fantasy after X has been less of an RPG than most AAA RPGs.

[pietro1212]

How was 12 less of a rpg? 12 party customization and stat building most AAA rpgs to come the past two generations.

[pietro1212]

*edit
better than most AAA rpgs

[CrystalFantasy3]

FFXIII is my favorite game of all time.

[WitcheRivia]

This article is basically saying that 1 person taking a crap on your carpet is better than 2 people taking a crap on your carpet.

[SterlingSilver]

Thank you for the obvious "I just saw the title but didn't decide to read the article" comment. I never state that 13 is a better game, I just argue that it's better than 15.

[WitcheRivia]

Hey alright, nobody gives a shit.

[DimensionalSound]

Neither were very good Final Fantasy games. The last true FF game was IX, and X & XII were interesting departures from the form. XIII and XV are too removed to be considered Final Fantasy games in any way other than sharing name; the difference between XV and XIII is that XV turned out to be a flawed-but-solid piece of gaming, while XIII is just a headache.

[SterlingSilver]

I utterly disagree but I'll throw you a bone because I can understand where you come from. I don't say, however, that either are good games in my article, I just argue that 15 is more guilty of the criticism that 13 gets. But in my opinion, not much of XV was solid.

[DimensionalSound]

I take your point well. I think you very well may be right; I think what had happened in XV was that it just had a cast of characters and a premise that clicked with people in a way that XIII just missed.

[Dixiedevil]

I never finished 13 when it was released out of sheer boredom. I picked it up on Steam a couple years ago and I got further but still didn’t finish it. It’s a trial in boredom. Walk down the path, battle, walk, battle, walk, 15 minute cut scene, walk, battle, repeat.
At least I finished 15.

[plmkoh]

Was about to comment the same thing, thanks for typing it out for me.

[lellkay]

I genuinely prefer 13 to 15.

[Discobastrd]

Good lord. Not played XV but XIII was utter shite

[galmi]

FF13 was absolute bullocks as far as i am concerned, worst FF I have ever played, it just looked good and that was all there was to it

[jaymacx]

The problem with Final Fantasy as a series now is SE is trying too hard to appeal to Western consumers. Just make a great JRPG.
_Multiple party members that we care about
_Strategic use of magic
_Exciting diverse worlds to explore

I used to like FF over any RPG but Dragon Quest and Persona has taken it's place. FF needs to re-establish it's identity and become king of the JRPG once more. if Bravely games and Octopath have shown us , that people really enjoy traditional style JRPGs.

[Elda]

Agreed!!

[ibrake4naps]

I give all non-mmo ff's a go. But I haven't loved any since 10

[lellkay]

I think 13's combat had so much potentially that it didn't live up to.

[jbrock11]

I'd agree. FFXV didn't even feel like a FF game to me. It's the first FF I played but couldn't force myself to finish. It had a decent story to work with because I was pretty hyped for it after I watched Kingsglaive the prequel movie but the game itself was just lacking in so many areas. Needless to say, I'd much rather play XIII than XV.

[Platformgamer]

in the first place, FF13 was a complete game at day one, not a beta

[pietro1212]

This whole appeal to western audience is utter bs. Outside of the Bioware, CD Project and bethesda titles a vast majority released still play like crpgs/wrpgs and are turn based. Was Square influenced by wrpgs such as Witcher, Elder Scrolls? Maybe. That isn't the issue the game went through development hell and 15 was nothing more half baked concepts that was scrapped together within a three year period.

[gamer7804]

Well lets start with the basics, all three FFXIII's were completed stories and completely thought out. FFXV was a train wreck in the beginning and just now with all the cancelled character development via dlc. disaster.