So I’m going to say this now to get it out of the way, I liked Final Fantasy XIII and think it has one of the best stories within the Final Fantasy series. I personally prefer the story to that of VII and X, so feel free to tweet or message me on Discord with your hate comments. There was something so unique yet, oddly comforting in the story that I could see myself in, or members of minority communities in. The story focuses primarily on its main protagonist Lightning, whilst also including the larger party (Sahz, Hope, Vanille, Fang and Snow) focussing on their stories and feeling coming to terms with their new found fates as L’cie. We all have our personal feelings about the individual characters (don’t get me started on Vanille!) but these characters had this thrust upon them, becoming slaves to the Fal’cie.
Lightnings sister, Sarah, connected some of the party together, as she was also in a relationship with Snow. Sarah was also a L’cie, and when L’cie fufill their fate, they become crystallised, ready to be utilised again when the Fal’cie see fit. The large part of a L’cies fate however, is that it’s unknown and must be found out through sheer chance & circumstance. This in itself drew me in massively to the game and its universe. Random people seemingly being picked by these higher beings to become slaves to an unknown fate, all whilst being shunned by the rest of humanity for their affliction. Sounds quite familiar to me.
This entry also saw the introduction of the ATB system (Active Time Battle System) which changed the way the battles worked. Previously battles were predominantly turn-based, but this brought a new edge to that. A bar charged up in segments, giving you access to more powerful skills, the more of the ATB gauge to used for each move. Simple moves such as attack and base magic cost 1 bar, with others costing 2 and up for more powerful magic. You also were required to switch your class to use different skills, and this could be done on the fly in battle and needed to be used to your advantage for the right enemies. Again, I quite liked this system as a change of pace, but I was never a huge fan of turn-based combat myself, but preferring action-heavy, or similar to the recent Final Fantasy releases of VII (remake) and XVI. Imagine XIII brought up to that level, whilst still being able to use the special abilities? That could potentially be one of the best looking battle systems we’d seen (at least in my opinion).
Now on to the nitty gritty of why people disliked this entry so much, the linear exploration. Personally, this didn’t bother me much and as we’e seen with some more recent entries (FFVII Remake),it doesn’t really matter. That being said, a little extra depth in exploration could really expand this game and give the world some more interesting lore. Whilst eventually the game does get a more open exploration towards the end-game, it takes far too long to get here, especially when there is such a need to grind that precious XP by this point. A lot of the story relies on this linear path however as they are fugitives, BUT each area could be further expanded to allow for some lore building and exploration for the grind.
Despite the bad air around XIII, it was further expanded on within its 2 sequels. Other entries in the Final Fantasy universe had spin-offs, but only two ever had a direct sequel. FFX, and now FFXIII. These further expanded on the universe, and added in to the lore. Whilst I can’t speak on behalf of FFXIII-3 (I never got round to playing that one), XIII-2 was also a great game taking place after XIII with time-travel elements thrown in for good measure.
I know many out there are calling for remakes of VIII and IX, but for me, XIII really deserves the remake to bring it to where it should be. Right near the top of the best games in the Final Fantasy Franchise.
