I really have some beef with XIII-2 right now. But before I get to that i figure I might as well get on about XIII first. What cell shaded fps not your thing? Wait no I'm talking about FFXIII which usually incurs spits of disgust in many gamer crowds soon as I mention it. While i do enjoy the ease i have shining my shoes because of this, I don't really agree. I actually like that game a good deal. But I understand why people feel like that. And that's what this little expo will cover.
Hey your locked up and unhappy- this is analogous
Now the biggest issue XIII has is pacing. Holy hell the first quarter of this game. Now all of this would be okay as a long intro- I can deal with the long opening (I'm looking at you KH2, yes you were bad- even if I liked Roxas), but XIII is really the worst offender I have ever seen. The reason is the lack of variety of combat early on- not the jumping between characters or setting. From a plot perspective no leveling etc should really be going on- i get that- but it took me 4 seconds to think around that. Want to introduce some battle mechanics? Give snow a riot shield- hes a sentinel now- hopes boomerang is some kind of ruin based military billy club thing. Good job we just went over two things, magic damage/sentinel style. This would have made the first section much more bearable. Instead you spam standard attack for like hours... THE HELL.
Oh look things I care about more than the death star in the sky!
Now the biggest thing you hear is the linearity of XIII. And this is a double edged sword. The controlled narrative allowed them some good character development. Regardless of what people say XIII is really good at this. I really liked and felt close to all the characters more so than a lot of other FF. Not by much mind you. But I got a good sense of them yet could still be pleasantly surprised from time to time (Sazh at nautilus for example). The problem isn't even the lack of freedom for me. Its the lack of world building. Cocoon is beautiful but all I can see is a string of set pieces because character jumps and linearity don't really give me a sense of how they connect. The lack of real shops and people causes the same thing. Well who cares maybe i like character driven stories mr world lover why don't you join green peace. Well Ill tell you why jerk. The major dilemma is what the l'cie should do. This whole time the connection cocoon is in distant flashbacks and meeting hopes dad. That's it. I was pretty ready to drop the place myself. Recall your only major interactions are getting shot at. Meeting a few kind, if ill informed people, along the way would make this a much bigger dilemma. The player would ask themselves should i really endanger this place- everyone seems happy.
These problems mostly subside by later in the game, but then its you and monsters strolling around grand pulse. Yay empty. That said feels all kinds of FF by this point. And it feels good. So yah the prettiness you encounter on the way belays these and like I said the character part of the narrative is pretty solid.
Also Sazh is fucking awesome.
So I'd recommend it (assuming you beat Lost Odyssey already.)
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