The only redeeming part about this game is the character design and the characters themselves. I have never been so frustrated with a system’s combat mechanics before. If the fights lasted 15 seconds it wouldn’t be a big deal but when I was playing the average fight was about 2-5 minutes. This compounded with having to watch paradigm shift animations every single time and a lot of down time while waiting for ATB gauges to fill just made me pull out my phone and mash square for about 45 seconds until I needed to switch paradigms to heal up. The air ship section is finally what made me drop the game. Going through ~4 hours of battles just made me so disillusioned that I didn’t want to play any more after I beat the boss there. The story is okay as far as I am concerned and the real meat of the game is the characters. I love all of them and I really want to know what happens and that’s the only reason that I may pick the game up again in the future.

This game story and characters are so wonderful. The cast is probably my second favourite after FFXV's, I just can't get enough of them.

The game can be a bit hard, especially if you don't know what you're doing but I didn't struggle too much even if I didn't grind like crazy which was a relief. The gameplay can definitely get quite repetitive so it is a game you should enjoy playing a little at a time, which is what I did and what made it far more enjoyable.

I honestly can't believe this game came out in 2009 because it still looks so good and it aged pretty well. The fast paced and unique gameplay was enjoyable and the crystarium was a joy. Only ick was the weapons and accessories upgrades and all, I didn't really dabble in it because it seems a bit too complicated.

The music is so beautiful honestly. One of my fav soundtracks out there.

Anyway. Please give this game a try. It's worth it.

Pontos fracos: movimentação fraca devido ao péssimo level design, primeiras 20h um sofrimento que puta que o pariu. História equivalente a comer arroz queimado com bife acebolado. Sistema de combate fica interessante lá pelo cápitulo 9. O problema é que até lá são 20h da sua vida.

Pontos fortes: LINDO. LINDO. LINDO. Se eu tivesse jogado no ps3 na época, afirmaria que é a vida real. CGIS magníficas, e combate (quando chega em determinado ponto) insano.

Não sei a história de desenvolvimento de FF13, mas é um jogo incompleto. O que ele faz bem, faz muito bem, o que ele faz mal faz muito mal.

I wanted to replay again this because the only time I'd be able to finish it was when the game was launched and it didn't fit me at all, and I'd supposed with the years it would've changed my mind... but in fact I think it has been worse than I would ever imagine.

Graphically is incredible even for nowadays, the CGI are stunning and some of the environment and maps are just amazing.
The battle system, however, is tedious since you have to repeat the same structure paths with similar enemies once and once again (It usually makes you to want to avoid most of the encounters in the way), but I have to say that the difficulty is so well measured and it introduces the chain gauge which would be implemented by so many other games in the future.
As a negative topic, the story is so rushed and confused that sometimes it doesn't even make sense at all, and the characters doesn't evolve enough, nothing remarkable if we compare them with other entries.

In any case, I have to mention the OST as so many other games in the franchise, which is spectacular, probably its best quality.

Resume: Not recommended if you want to start with the series with it.

Realizing I have a lot of conflicting opinions on this, it's a good game but I was just thinking like. Some parts of this makes me like really mad.

First we have a follow up to FF12 which I played right before this, didn't exactly help as FF12 has REALLY good dungeons, while this game only really has two, three if you're being generous. The dungeons aren't great but not as bad as people make it out to be, really the worst part of this game isn't really the fact the game is linear (this is a good thing, actually!) moreso it gives you a cool ass world and doesn't give you the chance to explore it, basically if you've played FF7R all the cities were basically reduced to those segments where you walk around and hear nearby npc chatter discussing the situation. Cities being gone in favor of a dungeon with constant back to back encounters is my biggest problem with it, I think Cocoon looks cool and the fact you don't really explore it kinda sours me the more I think about this game. FF13 has a really cool premise behind the world that gets wasted depending on how much you know about the absurd amounts of concept art out there (they have 13 designs for DIABLOS and they all look REALLY COOL) of a lot of summons as Fal'cie the gods of the world. That's another thing the terminology is not gonna be kind to anyone with a low tolerance for sci-fi jargon like that, I'm fine with made up words but all of the ones here (L'Cie, Cie'th, Fal'Cie) all really suck and sound bad. I actually had to correct the first mention of Fal'Cie (essentially, mysterious gods who govern the world) with L'Cie (Humans empowered by the Fal'Cie to fulfill a specific purpose) because it sounds the same.
"oh that's part of the charm-" SHUT UP!!!!!

The world feels like it's built on really cool ideas but the more I learn about the development and conceptualization phase the more I feel how empty and undercooked it is. Most of the world is just made out of encounters, you. have to fight EVERYTHING (or at least, most things) in order to keep your party leveled and all the segments where you just hang out in the world are reduced to the occasional objective marker with people hanging out in the side and saying stuff and one segment where you talk to your party before you go on some epic quest, these moments only last like 5 minutes at most, thats really not enough time, the story is written around this and for what it is it works but I really would like to stop fighting for a half hour or so at this point. (I have a similar issue with FF7R where there are points where the game starts throwing encounters at you and it's actually kinda worse there but at least that game gave combat breaks and let you experience the world!) The linearity of the game is actually a good thing! It is designed so that the game is always aware of your level and capabilities, it even gives you the paradigms you need for the first half of the game and gives you leeway to customize them, for the first half the game feels like a puzzle and while it comes at the expense of fun dungeons that in of itself is satisfying. The combat in general is great, the game knows this as there's a ranking system, it's kinda pointless unless you want 100% completion but it also showcases they intended ways for you to beat every encounter in an optimal way for the first half and also select bosses. Leveling is also amazingly done since you basically always have what you need at all times, even when the game opens up you can probably play the entire game with a "Pre-Pulse" setup, I don't suggest it, but the fact you can is still impressive all the same.

This is one of the harder Final Fantasies I've played, once full party access is available the game basically ramps up and gives you a minute to prepare, it even tests your ability with the best boss in the game that really kept me on my toes, I never made progress until I had every character maxed per chapter, probably wasn't a good idea but the idea of this game trusting me enough after keeping up with me for 30 hours was really intimidating, but even without most abilities being unlocked the game still felt challenging. I even got the achievement for beating the final boss within 5 minutes.

Now, to focus on the party and I don't know how to segue into that gracefully, but they're all really good! All of them, especially Hope who I'm sure some people hate because he's a pretty good estimation of how a 14 year old would react when having the worst week of all time. Everybody's arc is in your face, basically if someone is talking with like, some violins in the background that probably means it's their arc unfolding right now, it's very angsty in presentation and dramatic, all these guys had a REALLY bad two weeks, some worse than others. I saw someone talk about the angst being bad in comparison to other FFs but idk I think that kind of cheesiness should be expected in everything. I like how informed these characters are by their motives, Hope is a fucked up kid so he acts out (admittedly giving me secondhand embarrassment sometimes) Sazh is a single father trying to look out for his son, Vanille is half glass full but has some baggage behind her, Snow is really bad at his job (terrorist), Fang only really cares for herself and doesn't have much stake in the game also she's really hot.
I didn't mention Lightning, that's not because Lightning is a bad character, but because despite the fact that she is on the cover of all three games (one of them even being named after her) Lightning really isn't the main character, she's just the first character you play as and she has the token protagonist moments but her arc is not any more important than the other members of the party, she feels more akin to Vaan than Cloud or Squall (Someone who doesn't really have any agency on the situation but was swept up in it and goes through a much quieter arc as the story develops) If Lightning was not the only character seen on the cover I would never have guessed she was the main character, the story splits regularly to other perspectives and gives their arcs the exact same significance, you can even swap the character you play as in the overworld, there doesn't really feel like there IS a main character. Lightning is a good character, she's reacting to everything around her the same way someone in her early 20s who spent their life essentially raising their sibling would, she has the same human elements everyone else does but her placement as the main character feels a bit forced? Without any info, if I played this without her being the first character you meet and she wasn't the cover girl and I was asked "who's the main character?" I would probably take a bit to answer "Vanille?" and STILL be very unsure about it. I bring this up because I feel like there's not as much praise for the game for jumping playable characters and giving everyone equal importance. I actually like there's no one who's more important than the other, it would've been a very good selling point for me, I think the emphasis placed on Lightning in the trilogy did ultimately cause them to fumble her (another story) and I think that could've been sidestepped here.

I do like that this game is very party focused, with me really buying into how everyone acts like a unit. They felt like a family by the end... it would sure suck if a sequel ripped that apart in a very passive manner. Another thing it lacks is an antagonist which they all would've benefited from, 13-2 has a great villain but he's in a significantly worse game so we'll leave him alone for now. The character focus is pretty well done but the actual plot, the story, falls apart after its promising setup. Fal'Cie's are basically the antagonistic force all throughout the game but they don't really interact w the party aside from a few. Again I don't like talking about concepts that were scrapped but there was a lot of concepts with the summons filling in for the Fal'Cie some of them receiving multiple designs, I would've really been into this and doubly so if they actually said words in a human form or something. I think the story would've been a lot less confusing towards the end if there was a more tangible villain threat, but what was given was ultimately serviceable.

I have a lot of conflicting feelings on Final Fantasy 13, but I do like the game still. I don't like the dungeons, the combat is great, but I need more breaks from it specifically in segments that last more than 3 minutes, and it would've been nice to chill in a city with people in it every now and then. The world has a really cool setup and the cast dealt with it in a very compelling way, but the story itself kind of forgot itself in the last hour beforehand. Also it has yuri in it so yeah I like it.

I think a lot of critique (and some praise) aimed at this game has two extremes that I disagree with. The primary theme of the story of averting fate has been addressed in other Final Fantasies in plain better ways (with better dungeons!), but that doesn't take away what the game manages to do despite all the confusing and bad stuff in it (I didn't mention the shops or how weapons are handled, they were a pretty good indicator of how I was gonna feel early on) Final Fantasy 13 is definitely nowhere near close to my favorite Final Fantasy but it is one of the Final Fantasies I have the most to say about. Also the sequels are bad.

I missed out on most of the PS2 generation so this was my first FF since FF9. I know most people dislike this entry but I enjoyed it.

The soundtrack is utterly phenomenal, a work of genius and easily the best FF soundtrack ever in my opinion. What the composer accomplished is unreal, managing to blend a ton of genres together while still keeping a familiar motif.

I totally get the 'linear' criticism of the game, it feels like a tutorial for first 20 hours. The linearity is somehow refreshing though. You'd be naive to think other games aren't on 'rails'. They're just good at hiding it. FFXIII dispenses with the allusion and focuses on story, which to me is what is more important in an RPG. Storytelling and worldbuilding, not statistics and numbers. FFXIII is not a complete failure by all means, I consider it an underrated gem.

Gonna be real curious how I feel about this with more FFs under my belt. At the moment though, I really enjoyed the first half of the story, the character arcs with everyone hating each other and then overcoming stuff together was all great, and it had a lot of momentum to it. Once the band gets back together though, things got less compelling, and the string of antagonists didn't really stand out.

It took me a little while to truly wrap my head around the combat, and it works, but isn't really what I'm looking for. You're encouraged to auto-battle through your ATB gauges and focus on Paradigm Shifting through the fight and maximizing uptime, but it leads to a lot of encounters feeling very samey, and you rarely need to change up your game plan. It flattened the large party of characters too by having their distinct archetypes turned into the same general, automated roles. Not to mention, it takes a while for your Crystarium to truly open up and by that point I didn't really want to spend too much time completely redoing roles.

The corridors/no towns stuff is a wash to me, I guess. I'm not sure that those would fix anything, and honestly the pinpoint focus of the story feels really good for the momentum of things, and it probably helped with letting it be extremely gorgeous throughout.

There's plenty to like about the characters, and it's worth playing just to see the sights, but by the end I was mostly just happy to be done.

25 hours in and we had to stop. The game completely failed to make us care about the characters or the setting. It looks and sounds incredible but the core is so badly paced that we dropped off.

I am 100% for rethinking the grand RPG structure, and I quite like the combat. The main issue was that the story is a huge slog. The game is a lot of good ideas that just don't come together into a compelling experience.

At least I got a bit further than I did when I tapped out playing this when I was 15.

I'll admit I was a pretty big defender of FF XIII back in the day. I loved that the party is forced into such a hopeless situation, that they fight over what to do about it and split up, and watch as their actions cause political turmoil throughout their society. Honestly, it was "once the game opens up and gets good" that I started to like the game less, as the story came to an absolute grinding halt.

Coming back to XIII over a decade later, I do see a lot of what I still loved about it, but frustrations with how obtusely the story is doled out, and the repetition of endless, meaningless battles through overly simplistic levels dragged my enjoyment down by the hour. The RPG elements of this game don't make sense until 20 hours in, when you can actually make decisions about battles you engage in and how to develop your characters. Before then, nearly every battle is mandatory, character progression is on rails, and your party is fully healed between fights, removing all consequence or interest aside from mid battle decision making. Which in and of itself wears thin after fighting the exact same enemy mobs dozens of times over.

As for the plot, even after multiple playthroughs, I don't feel as though I have grasp of this game's setting and society. Yes, I do understand the endless number of proper nouns the game throws at you, and I have read through the datalogs, but it all stills feels extremely disconnected. Like I don't totally understand how this world functions, the roles these people play in it, or how they developed their worldviews (they were seemingly cynical bout their government even before the purge, why?). I also admittedly, don't find the cast particularly likable or relatable (cept maybe Vanille), and that does hurt my enjoyment, even if I do actually think the arcs they go through are the highlight of the game's writing. Despite that, any goodwill I have toward the narrative is killed by the ending, which wraps up the core conflict in the most easy and painless way possible, undermining what I even liked about it in the first place.

I understand why people like XIII, and really want to like it too, but it feels too deeply compromised. Hopefully the sequels fare better.