I had originally done away with my intent to give this game an introductory flogging, if only because I'd finally reached the point where it starts to get good and had no desire to relive the horror of Final Fantasy XIII's clumsy opening. Then I played a game that actually has an interesting and fun (gasp) first impression and realized it had to be done. You'll be shocked when you find out just what game that happened to be, but that will be covered in another post, probably.
It should be known that I had no intention of playing XIII, the same way I didn't play XII, the same way I gave up on XI and the same way I suffered through X (I like to pretend X-2 didn't happen). That was before it was given so many accolades by trusted friends. "Simply amazing" they said, "awesome game-play" they said, "best final fantasy in years", they said. "Well alright then, let me play it on your dime." I replied, and resolved to put it to the test.
Unfortunately the game they were talking about kicks in after 7 hours of one of the worst excuses for a "game" I've ever been involved in. All RPGs need a good opening, because they are generally pretty pedestrian gameplay-wise at the start. Win me over with your opening, and you've bought at least a few hours of my time. You've got time to step up the rest of your game. Final Fantasy XIII doesn't do that. Instead of writing a story that actually begins with something interesting, Square went with a story that starts very boring, then just fast forwarded the opening of the game to some point later when something interesting finally happens. Hours later they get around to explaining the set up for what you're watching and doing during this segment, but for now you'll have to be placated with explosions and dialogue. This way, by the time they get around to explaining them, you're already totally disconnected and uninterested in the characters (or rather, the (R)oles you're supposed to (P)lay in the (G)ame) and their motivations.
Questions like; "why are we fighting these people?" "are they bad?" "are we?" are just ignored. They are faceless soldiers, we have fluorescent hair and one liners. We keep tossing around plot words like, rebellion, and purge, and government, but never explain them or any one's connection to them. FFXIII additionally commits the Mass Effect sin of hiding copious amounts of lore in a journal like datalog that you're just supposed to peruse when you have no interest in playing the game, but Mass Effect has the decency to make sure that its all optional. XIII's intro makes no effort to explain the buzz words they throw around outside the datalog. What is a Fal'cie? A l'cie? Pulse? Eden? PSICOM? Focus? What planet are we on? Who are these people? You'll get none of this from the actual game narrative, only; "be these people, kill those people, and enjoy the bright colors."
Which would be fine if every character we're introduced to wasn't a completely blank slate or just devoid of redeeming qualities. The tough girl is supposed to be the leader, but she hates everyone and everything. Even after people start saving her life and asking for her help, she calls them weak and tries to leave them behind. Later on someone will remark that is her way of "crying out for help", as if that somehow excuses her being a bitch all the time. Then there's the black guy with the Chocobo living in his afro. For the record, at this point in the game there are no other a) black people, b) chocobos, c) afros, d) people with pets at all, in the game. During battle, the black guy is the only party member with guns, which he fires (sideways) while dancing. He is supposed to be the comic relief, but he is mostly just the guy who annoys the female lead the most. With other characters sporting names like Lightning, Hope, Snow, and Vanilla, I would not be surprised to learn his development name was Watermelon or even Fried Chicken, but I digress. The male hero, who heroically gets his entire rebellion killed, then abandons the survivors entirely for his own selfish ambition. The remaining two characters are children, or so they act, I'm not even sure anymore. One is always mopey because his mom got killed but he's too whiny to do anything about it, the other is always happy, and has no involvement in the plot whatsoever, save to keep the other one company. Naturally, you spend way more time with the high voiced obnoxious children characters and their boomerangs than with the semi interesting grown characters with swords and knuckles and guns.
Game-play wise, much has been said about the length of XIII's "training" period and the fact it requires the better part of 10 hours to fully dispense with tutorial pop ups and demonstrations before allowing you to fully use and develop your characters as you see fit. The worst part of this is that until they teach you how, you can't actually do any of it, so you begin with next to nothing to do in battle.
You see, in XIII you only control the "leader" of the party actively. The others just back you up according to role-assigned abilities and the AIs best judgement. The problem is, you start the game with neither abilities, or roles, or the means to develop them. So regardless of who you're in control of, your only options is select attack again and again and again. And that's ignoring the fact that even after you get some game to play with, your time in between battles is spent walking linear paths through grandiose non-interactive environments from cinema sequence to cinema sequence, many of which are no more than just the characters reflecting on what they just did or are about to do in casual conversation.
Now its obvious these many pitfalls are the result of trying to scale back their grand design to fit within the confines of an "opening" segment. Before I committed to even playing I demanded my friend show me some of what the "end" of the game look like to seal the deal. But they have scaled the games operations so far back in the beginning, they might as well have made it unplayable. Seriously. Years ago, I trashed Xenosaga for being little more than a silent hallway walking sim in-between cinema scenes, and 10 years later, they've learned very little.
The good news is eventually (8 hours, by my game clock) the game gets good. A couple of times they tricked me into thinking it was getting good, but it wasn't. Now I'm fairly sure it is. I still can't pick my party members or my leader, but there are abilities to unlock, items to craft, equipment to buy, and summon monsters to use. Why they couldn't have made any of this accessible early, I will never know. Game-play privileges are doled out seemingly at random with no bearing on plot or party members, so its just like they actively decided to keep you bored for the first 1/6th (or so I've heard) of the game.
In any event, I'll be sure (maybe) to check back in as I traverse the remaining discs in pursuit of what (most of) Final Fantasy XIII actually has to offer.
-F.
