I enjoyed this game when it first came out and 14 years later I still think this is an incredibly underrated entry in the Final Fantasy saga.
I don't disagree with a lot of the criticism, it's certainly incredibly linear and it handholds the player for way too long before opening up but at the same time it excels in area's where other Final Fantasy games don't.
For starters (and the thing I enjoyed most about the game) the story, the characters and the world. This felt like the first Final Fantasy game to make every single character feel important, and maintain their importance to the very end of the game.
In previous games, there were always characters that felt less important to the plot the further in you get. Sometimes it was because they were optional (see 1/3 of the FFVI cast), others it was just because they just weren't important to the overarching plot (see basically everyone except Zidane in FFIX). This isn't inherently a bad thing but for the first time in the series, 13 shines the spotlight on every single character and develops the relationships between them more so than any previous entry. There's even a point where 4 of the 6 characters intentionally decide to go opposite directions, with different objectives in mind.
Another area this game excels is in the difficulty curve. I feel like most Final Fantasy games reach a point of basically becoming stomping grounds for your characters, with the last bosses feeling like pushovers to your 9999+ damage wrecking crews.
Final Fantasy 13 manages to stay challenging through to the very end. It does so by very much constraining the upper limit of growth your characters can reach. It's an interesting solution to the balancing issue these games have always faced and it left me engaging with the combat for far longer than I would have otherwise.
This is a double edged sword though, because by removing the ability to out level the enemies, you're removing a core part of the franchise' identity and a lot of people weren't into that. I get it, but in my eyes it lead to a much more satisfying difficulty curve that kept the gameplay engaging.
Ultimately, I'm able to overlook the game's numerous shortcomings in favour of appreciating the things it gets right. In hindsight, a lot of the linearity seems to be the result of Square Enix struggling to adapt to the demands of developing HD games. This project was announced as a trilogy, clearly a means to recoup the increased development costs and given how much longer it would take for 15 and 16 to come out, it's clear they struggled with this issue for a very long time.
At the end of the day, Final Fantasy at it's core is about a good story and a rich, layered world and 13 delivers that in spades. Definitely a top 5 game in the franchise for me.
Oh, and there's a baby chocobo that lives in a dudes afro, so like, best game ever.
I don't disagree with a lot of the criticism, it's certainly incredibly linear and it handholds the player for way too long before opening up but at the same time it excels in area's where other Final Fantasy games don't.
For starters (and the thing I enjoyed most about the game) the story, the characters and the world. This felt like the first Final Fantasy game to make every single character feel important, and maintain their importance to the very end of the game.
In previous games, there were always characters that felt less important to the plot the further in you get. Sometimes it was because they were optional (see 1/3 of the FFVI cast), others it was just because they just weren't important to the overarching plot (see basically everyone except Zidane in FFIX). This isn't inherently a bad thing but for the first time in the series, 13 shines the spotlight on every single character and develops the relationships between them more so than any previous entry. There's even a point where 4 of the 6 characters intentionally decide to go opposite directions, with different objectives in mind.
Another area this game excels is in the difficulty curve. I feel like most Final Fantasy games reach a point of basically becoming stomping grounds for your characters, with the last bosses feeling like pushovers to your 9999+ damage wrecking crews.
Final Fantasy 13 manages to stay challenging through to the very end. It does so by very much constraining the upper limit of growth your characters can reach. It's an interesting solution to the balancing issue these games have always faced and it left me engaging with the combat for far longer than I would have otherwise.
This is a double edged sword though, because by removing the ability to out level the enemies, you're removing a core part of the franchise' identity and a lot of people weren't into that. I get it, but in my eyes it lead to a much more satisfying difficulty curve that kept the gameplay engaging.
Ultimately, I'm able to overlook the game's numerous shortcomings in favour of appreciating the things it gets right. In hindsight, a lot of the linearity seems to be the result of Square Enix struggling to adapt to the demands of developing HD games. This project was announced as a trilogy, clearly a means to recoup the increased development costs and given how much longer it would take for 15 and 16 to come out, it's clear they struggled with this issue for a very long time.
At the end of the day, Final Fantasy at it's core is about a good story and a rich, layered world and 13 delivers that in spades. Definitely a top 5 game in the franchise for me.
Oh, and there's a baby chocobo that lives in a dudes afro, so like, best game ever.