Hey everyone, I've finally got round to reviewing FF13 for my site.

If you're interested you can read that review here. Thanks for any feedback! :)

Johnny Mercyside: Game Review: Final Fantasy XIII (http://johnnymercyside.blogspot.com/2012/01/game-review-final-fantasy-xiii.html)

Other than your criticism of FF12 (for which I have ordered a pair of ritual disembowelling blades off Amazon and will with regret have to use on you at some point), your review made a lot of good points and was much fairer than the comments many people have made about this game.

Playing Devil's Advocate, I do think the game takes far too long to unlock some of the most important aspects of the combat. Not being to choose party leader or party composition until near the end of Chapter 9 is very annoying, and its long past the point where you need the game to be holding you back like that. Its particularly galling when you can't even use Snow in the attack on the Palamecia, despite him being with the party and according to the cutscenes, taking a combat role in the mission. I understand the artistic reasons behind it, but the game could stand to have given you a bit more freedom on who to use, because dictating who you *must* use and who *must* be in your party for 9 Chapters was too much.

I'm glad you like the villain, because I think he's one of the better bad guys too. I was a bit disappointed with how Ji'Hil and Rosch were treated so lightly, but the main main villain is great. He's particularly good (in a nasty sort of way) in the final sequence.

Anyway, I'd like to say more but duty calls. A good read as always, and a nice mix of prasing underappreciated aspects of the game, whilst not pulling punches on stuff that deserves to be criticised.

Thanks Vrykolas, yeah FF12 and FF13 are just on opposite ends of the scale to each other so you find so many people liking one and not the other. Sorry for the criticism of FF12 I just think it's probably my least favourite title, most certainly of the modern titles. :)

Hey everyone, I've finally got round to reviewing FF13 for my site.

If you're interested you can read that review here. Thanks for any feedback! :)

Johnny Mercyside: Game Review: Final Fantasy XIII (http://johnnymercyside.blogspot.com/2012/01/game-review-final-fantasy-xiii.html)

I personally felt that the characters weren't very gripping,and the actual villain took way long to actually appear.
During most of FFXIII,the main villain were pulse soldiers.A bunch of anonymous men working,without any idea of who was behind it till chapter 12.

By the time the main characters actually meet him,there isn't all that much to him.The music is quite good though for a boss theme.
Lightning was a cold hearted bitch,and she became a whiny girl whining with hope.Early on,she was pretty cold towards the main characters.

Hope:He whines whines,then becomes slightly hopeful,and then whines again at chapter 13.
Sazh:He is usually pretty easy going,but you see a time where he is actually sad because he has to confront vanille,who is responsible for what happened to his kid.

Vanille:she is mostly like selphie:Cutesy and jumping around and happy.I think there are 1 or 2 moments where she isn't,and that is when she is recalling or telling about how she and fang know.

Fang:She is pretty bland.She starts off as the bad girl,and then joins you.We find out that she and vanille knew each other,and that vanille i think? or was it fang? became ragnarok and destroyed the village she came from.Oh yeah:She had some part in turning sazh's boy into a l'cie.

At first,i kinda liked cid raines,because i felt sorry for him.He was trying to change the fate of the world by destroying the heroes,so they can't become ragnarok.Later on though,he is too daft to realise that they are on his side,and instead continues to work with barthandalus.
Its very hard to feel sorry for an idiot like him who has a chance to change,but instead chooses to be barthandaluses tool.

Raines is not working against them because he wants to - he's barely able to muster the mental strength to keep himself standing at that point. His spirit was crushed because every time he thought he was doing something of his own free will, it turns out that it was all part of the villain's plan. Both to form the rebellion in the first place, and later to oppose the L'Cie in the Fifth Ark. He is left thinking that no matter what he does, he can never escape from Barthandelous. He may even be actually controlled by Barthandelous - he does state that he has made Cid into 'A puppet restringed for my purposes'. Cid lets himself be killed, because he's just too tired to go on, feeling that his will is not and never has been his own.

Call Cid stupid if you like, but everything that happens in that game, up to and including the party reaching and defeating both himself and Orphan is according to Barthandelous' plans. Why shouldn't he lose hope after that? The only thing Barthandelous hadn't counted on was the people being able to go on and survive without him, the Fal'Cie and Orphan etc, thinking they would all die and God would return to start over again. Cid didn't believe it was possible to defy the Fal'Cie after everything that happened, and that's why he gives in.

Johnny:
It was just a joke about FF12 - disembowelling blades are far too expensive these days, even with free shipping. You are perfectly entitled to your opinion on the game (just as Nostagia is about FF13). You are right incidentally that many people seem to fall in behind either FF12 or FF13. I seem to be in a minority of people that like both!

I like FF12 enough to play it again, but overall I get no where near as much satisfaction from it as I do from the others. I just love Final Fantasy, all the games, and I'll bitch about certain things here and there but it doesn't take anything away from the fact that I love the series and always will. :)

I'll drink to that!

I still think that FFXIII is the worse game in the series.

Worse than FF3?!

Worse than FF3?!

In terms of gameplay:Yeah i think FFXIII is actually worse than ff3 on the regular nes.
For its time,FF3 on the nes was maybe a little behind,but story wise:there wasn't much to be expected.
It was an nes game,and nes games back then hadn't been all that complicated in stories.

On the other hand:FFXIII was on the xbox 360/ps3,and it had the tools to make a good game but it basically made a really long boring soap opera,with almost no replay value at all.It does get better in chaper 13,but by then,you already don't give a shit.

Even so:You don't get that much freedom.I don 't care about the trophies,because trophies are in a whole lot of other games.
Heck,Oblivion is way more fun than FFXIII,because you actually got a ton of things to do and experience.Story may suck,but so does FFXIII story.

I pretty much don't give a fuck about the characters.I was only remotely interested in fang Vanille and Sazh.

I may hate Vanille cause she reminds me of selphie,but at least she doesn't whine.
Heck,i prefer lightning over hope during half the game.

Gameplay wise:It's extremely boring and repetitive:

Kill get some chips kill get chips kill get chips,rince repeat 100.000 times and sell.

Buy items to upgrade do it again.

Worse yet:It is still a monotonous task to do when getting your final weapons.

I can get the best transformation items just as easily as gil,and that is pretty ridiculous.

Worse game in the series:FFXIII

Why:Too many cutscenes and gameplay doesn't cut it.
The game is basically an interactive movie.

Second worse game in the series:either FF2 on the nes,or FF8 on the psx.

Reason:The motherfucking ridiculously over complicated rules.

ff2 reasons for being so bad:It is Laughably broken.
You can 1 shot most bosses,and absolutely destroy the final boss with the blood sword.

This is also one reason why i don't think ff6 is the best gameplay either,and tend to lean towards FF5 gameplay over ff6.

Well, FF3 is easily the worst in the series for me. The difficulty of resurrecting fallen party members and the long, long dungeons with no save points and *constant* random battles are a perfect storm of awfulness. FF13 is one of the worst of the FF7 and onwards games, but I still like it. I still regard FF10 as by far the worst FF game of recent times, but I'd put most of the others ahead of FF13. I'm not much for FF9, but objectively speaking, I think its still probably better than 13.

Can't agree about FF8 though. One of my favourites, and contains most of the scenes and sequences that I consider amongst the very best in FF. Don't have any strong feelings about FF6 one way or the other. I certainly don't regard it with the same love that other people seem to. It was a bit dull IMO, and I have never understood the reverence with which it and its main villain Kefka are held. I just don't see anything special at work there.

No arguments about FF8's system though. Complicated much, Square?!

I didnt really like ff3 either. enemies early on can easily kill my party before i can do much.