I’ve been meaning to write about this particular game for a while. I started playing Final Fantasy XIII maybe around the month of August and have been playing it on and off since then. I think I’m almost done with the game, and I’m still not sure if I like this game or not. I’m trying hard to give this game a chance.
The first thing that put me off from the start was the game’s linear nature. I was hoping that beyond the first chapter of the game, perhaps they’d introduce towns or a world map. Something that was different from the super linear maps. I was very disappointed. Most of the game’s levels looked like this, with some variation.
How a typical map would look in FF XIII
I was just getting from point A to point B, through a straight path. Were there any forks in the road that lead me away from the main path to explore? Rarely. This game had barely any exploration. It wasn’t really until I got to Chapter 11, that I got a large map and was able to explore a bit. But really, one zone in the entire game.
The other thing that drove me nuts in addition to the linear levels were the monsters placed around the level. Maybe this is sort of my fault for not upgrading my weapons early in the game, but a lot the fights took a long time. My team was so weak I’d be tickling the enemies for five minutes, while at the same time taking a beating myself. The battles that really drove me nuts were against enemies with high defense. I recall some lizardy things or robots, in particular. Now give me two or three of those and I’d be in a battle for ten minutes. I had always wondered how in the world was I supposed to reach the target time of these battles, which sometimes ranged from 1-2 minutes tops. With all these long battles, a short map would take me about 30-45 minutes to clear.
The combination of the linear levels and long monster battles gave me a mostly negative view of the game. There was never any break from the constant levels and battles. I was really disappointed by the lack of towns. I feel the addition of towns is such core feature of RPGs. Towns are the reason why I became interested in RPGs. I could spend hours exploring a town and interacting with all the NPCs. If Final Fantasy XIII had some towns to explore after I got tired of constant battling, maybe the game would be a bit more bearable.
Sure, the paradigm shift is interesting, but since I’m constantly having to battle, it just doesn’t feel as special to me anymore. It starts to feel like busy work. Sometimes I think this game would have been better off as a movie. As a game, it feels stripped down to basic mechanics of battles and some flashy cut scenes. Square Enix, I’m sure you can do better than that.
