Clement Remembers Final Fantasy! (XIII)

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  • čas přidán 1. 06. 2024
  • Oh boy. A group of individuals become prisoners of fate when a godly being curses them with magical powers. Now the world's fate rests on their shoulders.
    How do I feel about this one? I'm.......not a fan.
    Support me on Patreon
    / clementj64
    00:00 - Intro
    06:19 - The Set Up
    18:59 - A Disjointed Story
    23:57 - Automatic Battle System
    39:47 - The Hallway
    46:10 - Crystarium/Crafting
    51:29 - The Characters
    1:09:20 - Eidolon Battles
    1:13:04 - Focus Reveal
    1:24:38 - Gran Pulse
    1:31:13 - The Music
    1:33:32 - Saving Cocoon
    1:43:42 - Conclusion
    #finalfantasy #finalfantasyXIII #finalfantasy13 #clementj64 #clement
  • Hry

Komentáře • 1,4K

  • @DonGEX
    @DonGEX Před 4 lety +509

    Clement (DOESN'T WANT TO) Remember Final Fantasy XIII.

    • @TheRezro
      @TheRezro Před 4 lety +17

      @Milkyway2099 I'm shocked that he didn't bring whole "Versus" thing because that is another level of epic disaster of this game! FXIII was mean to be a rebirth of this franchise! They prepared whole complex world of which event of the game were meant to be only a part (those cars weren't initially for show). But then they thrown away several projects to rush this game and basically cancel everything because bad seals (even if I though that techno-magic design of Fal'Cie was amazing idea for future of this franchise). So of course this game feel as wasted potential as it literally is that. Nomura was so salty that he bring back those stuff even in Kingdom Hearts 3.

    • @DiogoSilva-wm2oo
      @DiogoSilva-wm2oo Před 4 lety +10

      TheRezro to be honest verses is probably going to be mentioned in the XV video since I feel it’s more relevant when discussing XV

    • @mechashadow
      @mechashadow Před 4 lety +2

      Yeah I suggested this back in Final Fantasy II.

    • @taylord5381
      @taylord5381 Před 4 lety +3

      @Nick Norman hey. At least this game works.

    • @wjbushjr
      @wjbushjr Před 4 lety

      No one wants to.

  • @deltasceptile7805
    @deltasceptile7805 Před 4 lety +437

    The way you synopsized the story at the beginning made it way more interesting and engaging than the game actually presents it when you play it.

    • @David-uc4hc
      @David-uc4hc Před 4 lety +23

      Agreed! It actually made me want to play 13 again. I never got all the context to what they were fighting for. I definitely never understood what or who Orphan was or why it mattered. I never understood why Cacoon still collapsed. All this context actually makes the story seem possibly engaging.

    • @kevinvu5432
      @kevinvu5432 Před 4 lety +4

      @@David-uc4hc even ff7 gave more context than ff13.
      Ff13 just cared about being flashy.

    • @David-uc4hc
      @David-uc4hc Před 4 lety +14

      @@kevinvu5432 FF7 was full of context. The story is gets overly convoluted, but as a kid I had no problems understanding that Midgar was a city in a larger world ruled by a corporation, where the poors felt the need to rise up for the sake of their planet. That's context.
      Ff13 never gave that. Nothing had a sense of being a part of a larger world.
      I think the context is there, it just wasn't presented well. Which is sad. I think the ff13 narrative of humans against gods, and gods against gods, is a fascinating one. It could have been so much better.

    • @kevinvu5432
      @kevinvu5432 Před 4 lety +3

      @@David-uc4hc No. I really dont think the context was ever there for FF13. The story is told by the worlds biggest coincidences. A group of characters randomly chosen for being in the wrong place at the wrong time to prevent another group of gods to ending all humanity.
      And it's never fully made clear why the Pulse Falcie was even in that very specific location anyways.

    • @David-uc4hc
      @David-uc4hc Před 4 lety +1

      @@kevinvu5432 You're describing the context. It's not as fleshed out as FF7, but it's clear that there's more going on in the world than the game presents. It's there, it's just buried in datalogs and not well presented to the player. That doesn't mean they don't also have major gaps in the context.
      As far as the narrative goes, I do think taking themes of nihilism and powerlessness to their logical extremes while playing with deus ex machina tropes is interesting. I think they succeeded in some ways, I would call ff13 art, it just doesn't compare to the cohesiveness of previous final fantasies. They clearly had an art direction, and something they were trying to express beyond just being flashy. They didn't necessarily succeed, but the ideas are there it would seem.
      My biggest gripe is that FF6 already explored all of those themes, and it did so perfectly. I have many problems with ff13. But it deserves at least... some credit. A nugget of credit.

  • @ccshade7294
    @ccshade7294 Před 4 lety +250

    for a story about defying fate, the party sure do progress the plot by directly doing what the villain wants...

    • @ori.g4mi
      @ori.g4mi Před 4 lety +34

      This is what annoyed me the most about XIII. When Orphan shows up, they don't even try to use their brains.

    • @danielramsey6141
      @danielramsey6141 Před 4 lety +10

      @@ori.g4mi
      Yeah, clearly it's a forced Situation that they clearly don't want, but it's dumb because they don't find a Fucking alternative! Any Character depth is undermined by their One-track, One Way mindset that should've killed the whole population of Cacoon!
      It makes no Fucking sense, why do this all the While Spouting that you're Fighting Fate/Destiny!? It's complete bullshit!!!

    • @csp5531
      @csp5531 Před 3 lety +8

      Their very progression is a hallway.

    • @cypher838
      @cypher838 Před 3 lety +4

      @@ori.g4mi we will defeat you,orphan
      What?! no cocoon will fall

    • @Chelaxim
      @Chelaxim Před 3 lety +3

      Tales of the Abyss syndrome lol. The heroes have a MUCH bigger body count than the villians.

  • @papershadow
    @papershadow Před 4 lety +122

    So fun fact I read about Vanille and Fang: Fang was originally conceived as a male character before they settled on Lightning as a more stern and stoic protagonist. Apparently Lightning was meant to be more flirtatious, and they wanted to retain some of those traits with the now female Fang, while keeping in the subtext of his-now-her interactions with Vanille.
    Also, their basis was evidently from the two humans in Norse Mythology who survive Ragnarok, and their descendants go on to be the new human race and rebuild the world. Given the romantic subtext between them and their shared role in XIII's Ragnarok, there are quite a few lines to read between in their dynamic. At the very least, it definitely seems intentional by some writer.

    • @superlombax1561
      @superlombax1561 Před 3 lety +5

      Interesting.

    • @MASJYT
      @MASJYT Před 2 lety +7

      They should've kept her male then, Lightning could've had a more involving character arc instead of these weird non-relationships with a party that has zero chemistry with each other, where their relationships can barely be described as acquaintances with a story emotionally hinging on Serah, a character we don't know of and that only 2 party members has any meaningful connection to.

  • @DarthJoshReturns
    @DarthJoshReturns Před 4 lety +82

    I get that Fal'Cie, la'Cie, and all that other poppycock are supposed to be common knowledge in this world, but they could have had Vanille fill Tidus' role of having the exposition explained to them since they're from a different time period, or Hope since he's the youngest of the group.

    • @kbg12ila
      @kbg12ila Před rokem +5

      Yes there could have been a work around. I think the style of writing they chose isn't always a bad one and can some times give a more realistic effect where it feels like your witnessing a real story and not soneone speaking to the audience. But with this amount of terms and complexities within the world, it needed an audience character.

  • @chrisossu2070
    @chrisossu2070 Před 4 lety +196

    The world building sounds super interesting, then I remember that I have to crack open an encyclopedia to get most of it.

    • @TheRezro
      @TheRezro Před 4 lety +21

      Yeh, I downright despise this design! Glossary should serve a purpose of reminding us the story, not be the story! If game fail to explain plot organically then it is even worst then plot dump. Well. Plot dumps also are bad. Both usually are result of lack of cooperation between level designers and the writers.

    • @megamike15
      @megamike15 Před 4 lety +1

      the reason it worked in mass effect and dragon age [ whee square stole the idea from] was due to it being optional.

    • @TheRezro
      @TheRezro Před 4 lety +11

      @@megamike15 It is way older design. Problem is that this solution become abused as some creators are too lazy for proper directing. Destiny is worst case study here.

    • @sanfransiscon
      @sanfransiscon Před 4 lety +2

      I used to be a sucker for made-up fantasy words, but nowadays I think they need to be used sparingly, especially if you're going to have a "cold open" like FF13 does.

    • @megamike15
      @megamike15 Před 4 lety

      @@sanfransiscon same i tend to prefer generic fantasy settings that twist the tropes then a whole new one.

  • @brancellbooks
    @brancellbooks Před 4 lety +165

    18:54 "And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the setup to Final Fantasy XIII."
    I thought you were recounting the entire plot of the game.

    • @Gaia_BentosZX5
      @Gaia_BentosZX5 Před 4 lety +22

      And that is why graphics don't make the fucking game. A shining example of a graphical powerhouse that failed to deliver.

    • @taylord5381
      @taylord5381 Před 3 lety +3

      "What did I think of it? I hated it..."
      *Ren and Stimpy credits music plays*

    • @KOTEBANAROT
      @KOTEBANAROT Před 3 lety +11

      Well he basically did. There is barely any story, characters just kinda stumble around and bicker with each other

  • @SugiDev
    @SugiDev Před 3 lety +37

    When you said if Vanille turned out to be a god that lived for millions of years and humanity just amuses her, I was in awe. That would have made her personality make sense, and be 100x more interesting! what a shame.

  • @IceQueen975
    @IceQueen975 Před 2 lety +21

    Ngl, I LOVE the battle theme of this game. The swelling of the violins is just so epic. Makes fighting bearable.

  • @NurseValentineSG
    @NurseValentineSG Před 4 lety +243

    Yeah the whole argument "oh the game gets good 10, 20, 30 hours in!" doesn't fly with me. Ever.
    DMC5 is fun literally from the first second you play it.
    Hell, some super grindy games like MMOs or roguelikes always have something that grabs you right at the beginning and expands from there.
    If the game isn't fun, why bother.

    • @myheroandmadaralover2372
      @myheroandmadaralover2372 Před 4 lety +2

      why do think I advoid monder sqare titltes I love persona 4 golden and persona 5 and hopeful 5 royal

    • @raze2012_
      @raze2012_ Před 4 lety +16

      counter argument: I can name a LOT more games that start off well but drag off towards the middle and lead to a disappointing end. In that regards, I don't mind a slow start if it means I get an actually satifying climax and conslusion in the end. It's part of why Trails in the Sky is one of my favorite games of all time.
      With that said, FF13's payoff wasn't worth the grind IMO.

    • @okagron
      @okagron Před 4 lety +27

      @@raze2012_ That's not a counter argument, you just listed the opposite of what 13 did. Both cases are bad. And 13's payoff after a 20 hours tutorial doesn't make up for it, so it really doesn't matter.

    • @DevilHunter1994
      @DevilHunter1994 Před 4 lety +15

      I'm usually pretty lenient when it comes to the start up time for an RPG, but asking people to force themselves through HALF THE GAME is way too much. I get it. These worlds are large and complex and sometimes you need time to set things up. You need 5 or so hours to get things rolling before we really get into it? Okay fair enough. 25 hours?...ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY!?

    • @DevilHunter1994
      @DevilHunter1994 Před 4 lety +6

      @@raze2012_ Trails in the Sky is a slow burn, but it also has compelling characters, writing and battle mechanics throughout, so there was still motivation to keep going. Yes it had a good payoff for your time investment, but that good payoff wasn't the only thing that made it good. It was good throughout and just kept getting better the longer you played. If the game was terrible leading up to the climax, then the climax would have fallen flat on its face. Like if Joshua and Estelle were shit characters, then nobody would have cared about what happens to them at the end, but because the character writing and everything else was handled so well before the climax, that ending is an emotional gut punch that makes players want to move forward with the next installment. The Climax in Trails games work so well in making the player want to keep going because everything leading up to that climax was so satisfying and worthwhile.

  • @Acecard-jl2py
    @Acecard-jl2py Před 2 lety +16

    Upon plot Assessment, I have a sneaky suspicion that Snow was originally the main character before being shafted by lightning. Probably to shake things up. But since Sarah is so important to the story, they made Lightning and Sarah sisters.

  • @TheZatharias
    @TheZatharias Před 4 lety +63

    FF13's plot is like: "A-are we the baddies?"

    • @smashmaster521
      @smashmaster521 Před 4 lety +6

      Sure...why not?

    • @Icepick614
      @Icepick614 Před 4 lety +5

      That what I think when I play MGS 4. Like the bad guy wants to shut down all weapons and end all war, and we're here to stop him.

    • @StCerberusEngel
      @StCerberusEngel Před 4 lety +2

      You don't KNOW yet!?

    • @wreday720
      @wreday720 Před 3 lety +1

      mitchell & webb reference?

  • @ccshade7294
    @ccshade7294 Před 4 lety +28

    this is the first review of ffxiii where the story was sufficiently explained so i understood what exactly was going on beyond "what's our focus?" "we don't know!" "what do we do?" "forget our focus!"

  • @signas501
    @signas501 Před 4 lety +72

    Holy crap, it's like a day hasn't passed since Clements Sonic 06 review series, and it blew my mind hearing Clement reference Enchanted Arms in 2020. The only thing I regret about Final Fantasy 13 was Sazh Katzroy's irrelevance after the first FF13 had concluded, the only character I genuinely cared for is very rarely talked about and even shown in Final Fantasy media today.

    • @wickerman6121
      @wickerman6121 Před 4 lety +12

      Shit, he becomes irrelevant? He was the most interesting in the cast, that kinda breaks my heart.

    • @SailorSetsuna7
      @SailorSetsuna7 Před 4 lety +5

      At least he is treated well by Dissidia Opera Omnia. If I remember correctly, he is the first of the FFXIII cast to be recruited.

    • @thunderguyer
      @thunderguyer Před 4 lety +2

      @@SailorSetsuna7 I think he's one of,if not the first person you get in the game,after the original 3. Or maybe he is part of the Original 3 party members

    • @SailorSetsuna7
      @SailorSetsuna7 Před 4 lety +3

      @@thunderguyer The original 3 are WoL, Rem and Vivi. But Sazh is definitely recruited in the 1st chapter

    • @signas501
      @signas501 Před 4 lety +3

      I kinda wish he had cameos in stuff like Kingdom Hearts 3, or something else to play off of and grow as a character.

  • @sanfransiscon
    @sanfransiscon Před 4 lety +113

    I think Hope's character could have been really effective if he didn't have so many outbursts. If those raw emotions showed at the start but mostly stayed bottled up, aside from a few quiet snide remarks, as personal feelings are ignored in favor of urgent external conflicts. Then when Lightning starts to rub off on him, it becomes clearer that things needs to be resolved.

    • @DevilHunter1994
      @DevilHunter1994 Před 4 lety +31

      It also would have been helpful if Hope didn't literally see Snow do everything he possibly could have to try and save Hope's mother. I mean I get that losing a parent is always going to be traumatic no matter the circumstance, but come on. Hope saw his mother willingly volunteer for the assignment. He saw Snow give her the chance to back out precisely because he knew that she had a kid to look out for and he saw Snow hanging on to his mother's hand with every ounce of strength he could muster so that she wouldn't fall. Most of the time the whole misplaced blame for the death of a loved one plot only works because the person who experienced the loss is basing their grudge off of incomplete knowledge of events, or simply lacks an alternative outlet to take their anger and grief out on. Here, neither is the case. Hope has all the information needed to realize that Snow wasn't to blame here and it's not like he didn't have other outlets for his anger either. Just blame the people who gave the order for the purge in the first place. THEY killed his mother. Hope blaming Snow for that just seems really forced...God I can't believe I just went on a whole rant defending Snow. I hate Snow. He's clearly a naive fool in the first XIII, but this is one thing he really can't be blamed for.

    • @WeirdoGeek
      @WeirdoGeek Před 4 lety +4

      @@DevilHunter1994 Another thing Hope was around for worth noting: It wasn't Snow who started that volunteer thing. It was some fatass in a green apron and his friend. I'm pretty sure they both fell off the bridge when it was destroyed, too. Karma had him covered.

    • @David-uc4hc
      @David-uc4hc Před 4 lety +14

      @@DevilHunter1994 I actually find Hope's level of denial to be pretty realistic tbh. Feelings aren't rational things and it's easy for kids to unwittingly deny blatant reality in favor of a narrative that makes more sense. Which Hope does.
      Memories are also very malleable, especially in kids, and especially in kids dealing with trauma, so Hope isn't likely to remember the traumatic events the way they actually happened.
      He can't deal with or understand abstract threats like the Falcie, but he can understand that Snow couldn't save his mother, so for a child the primary goal is to make rational sense out of your feelings even if those feelings don't reflect reality.
      That's honestly common when you're dealing with childhood trauma in the real world. It can take decades to come to terms with the reality.
      I also don't think it's unrealistic he would blame Snow specifically, as Snow was immediately present. That's all it takes sometimes.

    • @papershadow
      @papershadow Před 4 lety +6

      @@David-uc4hc How young is "childhood" in this context? Hope is 14, so while not fully matured, he seems like he should at least have a rational sense of reality compared to RPG's where you have grade schoolers fighting Cthulu monsters. At the very least, Snow has done literally nothing to single him out as responsible compared to the Sanctum actually shooting them down, especially when Snow, to Hope's explicit witness, tries to tell Nora not to join up.

  • @JomaXZ
    @JomaXZ Před 4 lety +104

    The first 40 seconds of your plot summary made more sense to me than the first two chapters did (I quit playing somewhere around there because I got bored and was very confused)

    • @crashspike22
      @crashspike22 Před 4 lety +8

      This.

    • @gmaster2647
      @gmaster2647 Před 4 lety +7

      I haven't played it and was surprised to hear that the plot summary wasn't as straightforward as how he said it...and it just makes me wonder why they chose that method of storytelling. It can work if you have good writing and a premise that won't leave you asking "what the hell is going on" for hours, and it seems this game failed to do that.

    • @sanfransiscon
      @sanfransiscon Před 4 lety +3

      I think it's (mostly) a good story.
      It's just told poorly.
      I have a similar opinion with the Kingdom Hearts series.

    • @christianlopez707
      @christianlopez707 Před 4 lety +4

      @@gmaster2647 they where probably trying to recapture what they did with ff7 sense the game starts in a similar way, the difference is that with ff7 this was properly handled and it worked. With 13 they throw so much stuff at you in the start without exposition that it's hard to keep track of.

    • @papershadow
      @papershadow Před 4 lety +3

      @@christianlopez707 FF7 starts without espousing the characters' histories but it doesn't leave you in the dark on the Jargon the characters will casually use throughout the establishing dialogue. FF13 expects you to extrapolate the characters' dynamics from their situation, but you need to read the Datalogs to comprehend the situation in the first place.

  • @anothergamer112
    @anothergamer112 Před 4 lety +33

    45:15
    "Does thirteen have its own language?"

  • @cartmann94
    @cartmann94 Před 4 lety +42

    Final Fantasy 13: The Eternal Hallway.
    That’s how I’ve always refer to it.

    • @Farimere
      @Farimere Před 4 lety +5

      The dungeons are hallways, the towns are hallways, and even the leveling system are hallways.

    • @smashmaster521
      @smashmaster521 Před 4 lety +1

      @@Farimere Hallway XIII: The Re-Hallway-ening.

    • @OmegaCoolsterDX
      @OmegaCoolsterDX Před 4 lety +2

      @@Farimere the game is playing itself Jon, THE GAME IS PLAYING ITSELF JON!!!!

    • @qster4
      @qster4 Před 4 lety

      I prefer Final Hallway, Final Hallway 2: Friends Through Time, and Final Hallway 3: Dress-Up Dilemma.

  • @Kara99tg
    @Kara99tg Před 4 lety +72

    "But lo and behold, a goddamn miracle happens."
    Yeah, everyone being restored after turning into Cieth and then again after turning to crystal was an act of God. It's a literal Deus ex Machina to set up XIII-2.

    • @Whirlwhind1
      @Whirlwhind1 Před 4 lety +1

      I thought the Cieth thing was an illusion to fuck with them.

    • @okagron
      @okagron Před 4 lety +3

      @@NoxNyctores427 So, the whole thing about the fear of becoming a Cie'th and that driving the characters to do their focus was pointless? Sure, the character don't know that would happened, but it still makes that whole thing pointless in the end.

    • @misapheonix
      @misapheonix Před 2 lety +1

      @@okagron It's not pointless, we see other characters turn into crystal. Which very easily lends itself to them also having the chance to turn into zombies.
      The critique for this game not having a 'good story' is misplace, but only because the way its told is like that, misplaced lol

  • @OneTrueNobody
    @OneTrueNobody Před 4 lety +56

    Vanille's cutesy girlishness is one of those things that makes more sense when you consider Japanese sensibilities. That kind of bubbly always-smiling attitude is considered really cute and endearing in anime culture. It's not entirely realistic even in real-world Japan (you should probably look to the Yakuza series if you want a more grounded idea of what women are expected to be like over there), which is why the only character in the Persona series who approaches this level of over-the-top behavior is Rise Kujiwawa the pop idol (who's gotten used to maintaining that kind of stage face and actively uses it to counteract her natural shyness). But it's exceedingly common in anime-culture things and Final Fantasy has its fingers in that narrative pie pretty deep.
    It doesn't quite work with the TONE that Final Fantasy XIII was going for, though. When Serah behaves in that cute over-the-top girly way in Final Fantasy XIII-2 it feels more narratively sensible because the game's emotional wavelength is more cheerful and adventurous.

    • @OneTrueNobody
      @OneTrueNobody Před 4 lety +3

      The fal'Cie actually didn't give two hoots either way about whether humankind was flawed or not. They just really wanted to bring back the Maker and were willing to make a mass sacrifice of humans because they THEORETICALLY thought that it would open up the barriers between life or death and bait the Maker into coming back just to see what the hell was going on. Final Fantasy XIII's story concepts are good but the delivery is too oblique for it to work. Half the mythological stuff necessary to get it is optional (but you'd better find it otherwise the plots of FFXIII-2 and Lightning Returns come out of nowhere).

    • @ZenoDLC
      @ZenoDLC Před 4 lety +6

      It would work if we get a few scenes where Vanille is alone, and while alone, the cheerful mask drops, a very easy scene to make if you get inns in the game

    • @sopekaunutoa8210
      @sopekaunutoa8210 Před 2 lety

      @@ZenoDLC Well, they have moments of internal monologues with her, right? I mean, I know she's mainly narrating the story, but you know what I mean.

    • @rawrdino7046
      @rawrdino7046 Před 2 lety

      I find it cute...

    • @christaylor86
      @christaylor86 Před 6 měsíci

      Making sense doesn't make it bearable.

  • @Zostead
    @Zostead Před 4 lety +64

    In the words of the SF3 3rd Strike announcer "Yeah I been waitin for this!"
    Edit: OMG I MISS YOUR VLOG REVIEWS MAN! I used to put those on when I was studying or drawing all the time. I was miffed when I couldn't find em anymore

    • @SuperFusionAJ93
      @SuperFusionAJ93 Před 4 lety +2

      Well I got the Picture!

    • @Zostead
      @Zostead Před 4 lety +3

      @@SuperFusionAJ93 "Yeah That Makes Sense"

    • @Scott_McKewl
      @Scott_McKewl Před 4 lety +2

      Alright, that's cool.

    • @thelastgogeta
      @thelastgogeta Před 4 lety +2

      YEAH I SEE
      czcams.com/video/KWcH-teJ0xI/video.html

    • @smashmaster521
      @smashmaster521 Před 4 lety +2

      Street Fighter III: Third Strike is such a good game. From it's gorgeous graphics to the tight gameplay, I can see why it's so beloved by the FGC.

  • @Ultimataco
    @Ultimataco Před 4 lety +26

    Clement needed to be savage on this game for his review. It was his focus, congratulations on the immortality I guess Clement

  • @joegreen3802
    @joegreen3802 Před 4 lety +63

    Cloud: And then some guy with a Gunblade showed up, and after a quick talk, we both agreed that 13 is the worst number.

    • @DarthJoshReturns
      @DarthJoshReturns Před 4 lety +1

      One of the few funny jokes from Final Fantasy VII: Machinabridged.

    • @joegreen3802
      @joegreen3802 Před 4 lety +12

      @@DarthJoshReturns I overall found the series to be hilarious.

    • @DarthJoshReturns
      @DarthJoshReturns Před 4 lety +6

      ​@@joegreen3802 You're entitled to that opinion, but just didn't care for it. You could tell TeamFourStar's A-Team didn't work it. Half the jokes consisted of everybody being an asshole to Cloud for no reason, they were really trying to force "Don't Fuck Up" as a meme, the characterizations are the most cliched you can expect from a shallow FFVII parody, it so obvious the writers are Clerith shippers with how unflattering Tifa's characterization is and how Aerith is adored by most of the cast, and the editing is Naruto: The Abridged Movie levels of mediocre (I guess most of the budget went to getting Kira Buckland and Sarah Williams to do voices). I feel like people are too lenient with it because it's TeamFourStar.

    • @marktomlin5818
      @marktomlin5818 Před 4 lety +1

      how do u guys feel about FF VII Remake? ff 7 remake has a stagger system like 13 is it better implemented?

    • @ChigoIEbere
      @ChigoIEbere Před 4 lety +7

      @@DarthJoshReturns Personally I always liked Machinaabridged, and it was technically the first thing I'd ever watch from TFS. But I guess we can just agree to disagree.

  • @TylerW44
    @TylerW44 Před 4 lety +15

    38:28 - Probably already addressed, but this is an example of where the auto-battle can really mess you up. You don't need all those provokes. Manually building the combo for one provoke and then popping the defensives was the way to go.

    • @557deadpool
      @557deadpool Před 2 lety

      It wouldn't matter, the animation would still fuck you over

  • @Pan_Z
    @Pan_Z Před 3 lety +36

    1:43:34 "You know what, it was probably mentioned in a data log. I don't care."
    Best way of concluding any explanation of FFXIII's lore.

  • @okagron
    @okagron Před 4 lety +70

    What makes this game even worse is that around the time it came out, Xenoblade Chronicles came out. Their excuse they couldn't do big open areas from the start went out the window when the first open area in Xenoblade Chronicles is at the start of the game and the game is filled with big open areas to explore. Not to mention sidequests that appear from the start of the game and not 20 hours into it.

    • @TheRezro
      @TheRezro Před 4 lety +9

      To be honest it was design choice to reflect on lack of choice of the characters. It is why you get somewhat open Grand Pulse later. Problem is that it is perfect case study on how not to design the game!

    • @cypher838
      @cypher838 Před 4 lety +15

      Xenoblade is good from beginning to end. It is truly fantastic.

    • @papershadow
      @papershadow Před 4 lety +18

      @@TheRezro That's a case of artistic integration hamstringing the gameplay experience, at which point you're using the medium to its detriment (albeit more than "movie games" like TLOU tend to integrate their gameplay).
      And I think Xenoblade helps illustrate another perspective that XIII loses out on: The hallway design makes the world feel artificial and small, which hurts the immersion and stakes for many players when the conflict is about saving or destroying this world (or at least the Planetoid sized Cocoon). XB's world is designed to be huge so you feel how far your journey takes you and the scale of what's being threatened by the endgame when the conflict goes beyond just the playable cast.

    • @TheRezro
      @TheRezro Před 4 lety

      @@papershadow My point :D
      As another example Final Fantasy VII theme is letdown. I mean as whole point of the game! If you pay attention nothing we do in that game actually matter. No matter what our protagonists would do, planet would defend itself as it absolutely did. But this theme stay a theme and game still have strong gameplay and interesting plot. It is why people love it despite or because of the theme, as it challenges our preconceptions. In FFXIII theme hinder both gameplay and story, instead being properly integrated as its part. Whole thing would work even if we would have freedom on gameplay level, with our protagonists still being forced to act despite they intend.

    • @blackchase6732
      @blackchase6732 Před 3 lety

      the game is great

  • @raikohzx4323
    @raikohzx4323 Před 4 lety +30

    Honestly, it all makes sense once you hear about the development issues this game had. Those pretty graphics came at a cost of absolute hell with their Crystal Tools engine, EVERYONE in the company had to double-time to get XIII into a workable state which is partly why so many Kingdom Hearts handheld games exist as well as a major part of the reason (alongside XIV 2.0) as to why Versus XIII had to become XV, and numerous other problems. XIII wasn't just a bad game, it was partly responsible for fucking up Square-Enix's development for the following decade.

    • @Matthew_Klepadlo
      @Matthew_Klepadlo Před 4 lety +3

      RaikohZX
      The game did go through development hell, but I wanna bring attention to something.
      The development history isn’t important to a review.
      I’m sorry me boi spongebob, but I’m not gonna give mercy points over the politics behind the video game.
      They sold this in stores for 60 bucks and people had an awful time playing it.

    • @taylord5381
      @taylord5381 Před 4 lety +3

      @@Matthew_Klepadlo I see you remember clement's sonic 06 review word for word too?

    • @Matthew_Klepadlo
      @Matthew_Klepadlo Před 4 lety +3

      Taylord
      How could I not?
      If I’m not worshiping the Christian god, then the Sonic 06 review is the thing in my life to worship.

    • @USMC49er
      @USMC49er Před 3 lety

      Crystal Tools engine flopped so hard that only 5 games used it within a world cup cycle and never used since.
      FF13 trilogy, FF14 1.0, and DQ10. Not exactly good company.

    • @aeroga2383
      @aeroga2383 Před 2 lety

      @@USMC49er a lot of good engines were abandoned for no reason. Crystal isn't special in this regard

  • @tahamohammad8842
    @tahamohammad8842 Před 4 lety +34

    1:13 I’m surprised clement didn’t make the obvious joke considering he’s a huge mega man fan

    • @Gaia_BentosZX5
      @Gaia_BentosZX5 Před 4 lety +2

      Then again, he said "trope". Get the mallet!

  • @Oromoney
    @Oromoney Před 4 lety +26

    2:20am, time for be-
    (Clement’s XIII video goes up)
    I didn’t need to sleep anyway 👏

  • @soraroxas8453
    @soraroxas8453 Před 2 lety +14

    The issues you have with XIII combat I don't have seeing as Auto usually doesn't work half the time and gets you killed at least in my experience. But you also have to take in to consideration you can cancel ATB times and speed up switch animations. Ex: at 38:14 you could've just casted one Provoke and One Steelguard in the same ATB and lived but you let auto do it and it tore you up

  • @EeveeSoulSilver
    @EeveeSoulSilver Před 4 lety +1

    Great video, Clement! You’ve been doing this retrospective for a few years now and I’m still enjoying it! Good luck with 13-2!

  • @Acecard-jl2py
    @Acecard-jl2py Před 4 lety +2

    Wow, that was quick. I was just thinking about rewatching your XII video and apparently you already uploaded XIII?!? Thank you Clement!

  • @TheLoneGamr
    @TheLoneGamr Před 4 lety +25

    If I remember the reason this game is so linear because Square said making towns in HD graphics is hard. Which is such bullshit.

    • @Kenjitsu419
      @Kenjitsu419 Před 4 lety +8

      It was hard to make towns in the engine they made. You can see that in the Amusement park and a bit in 13-2. It's 100% thier fault but it was an issue

    • @danielramsey6141
      @danielramsey6141 Před 4 lety +3

      @@Kenjitsu419
      Clearly that Crystal Tools bullshit wasn't worth the cash dump. Especially after moving to Unreal 4.
      What a Waste of the console PS3 lifecycle.

    • @Kenjitsu419
      @Kenjitsu419 Před 4 lety +1

      @@danielramsey6141 I guess you didn't read the 100% thier fault part lol. Yeah i agree with you but think about it like this, you dump several million into an engine you made to make your game up to your standards only to find out your engine sucks. Do you A. Scrap the project wasting even more money and time or B. Push through developement to get something out? Thier hands were tied.

    • @fightingmedialounge519
      @fightingmedialounge519 Před 4 lety

      Then just push out an easier project that wouldn't cost as much.

    • @Kenjitsu419
      @Kenjitsu419 Před 4 lety +1

      @@fightingmedialounge519 Isn't that literally the definition of being a cheap company? Why would you ever ask them to push out a cheap product intentionally. In fact that's the main complaint of XV because Tabata pushed it out. Also again, another person fails to read what i said... The engine was already made and it sucked but if they move to another engine that exponentially increases dev time. If that's the case they did take the easy route by just using that engine.

  • @ThunderDragonRandy
    @ThunderDragonRandy Před 4 lety +38

    While I have skipped a few FF retrospective videos to prevent me from being spoiled (like FFX since I still haven't completed it which I eventually should one of these years), this is a one that I will not skip and will watch since I have 0 plans of ever playing FFXIII.

    • @ori.g4mi
      @ori.g4mi Před 4 lety +6

      As someone who has played the game and actually kind of enjoyed it... yeah, DON'T. I enjoyed it for the visuals. There's nothing else thats good about it, really.

    • @danielramsey6141
      @danielramsey6141 Před 4 lety +8

      You should definitely complete FF10. It's such an Great game, and yeah...it's way better than FF13 and it's Sequals.

    • @iamdeafzed6
      @iamdeafzed6 Před 4 lety +1

      Smart move. I bought it (used) and played it...frankly for no other reason beyond the Final Fantasy namesake.
      FF13 is at least playable, and while the battle system is relatively mindless (early on especially), it does evolve to a point where your choices start to matter more (notably when and how to paradigm shift). I was sort of into it for awhile.
      That said, Clement is absolutely correct that the game gives you zero context for the story. I beat the game, and still had almost no idea what the hell was going on, because I never read the Datalogs (and why should I have to?). He's also not far off in calling it a "hallway simulator" for all but that one chapter near the end of the game (which is easily the best part, though still not even close to classic FF greatness).
      So FF13 isn't terrible, but it's just so "Meh..." overall. And there's no reason not to spend your precious time playing genuinely good games instead.

    • @zzz43344
      @zzz43344 Před 2 lety +1

      @@ori.g4mi Personally, I rather liked both its visuals and its music, like I never found it forgettable at all despite what Clement has said (hell, Blinded by Light is imo the BEST battle theme of the whole FF franchise, as far as I'm concerned). Beyond that though, yeah I pretty much agree with everything else here. Definitely the weakest entry of the main FF series.

    • @aeroga2383
      @aeroga2383 Před 2 lety +3

      I had the entire plot spoiled for me by the rabid haters and still ended up liking the game. Easily my favorite Final Fantasy

  • @666ZX
    @666ZX Před 4 lety +108

    Damn, he tore into that game lol.

  • @crashschwarzen4642
    @crashschwarzen4642 Před 4 lety +52

    Still love this game to this day, my favourite in the series but damn this is what I call a good reiwew, you really know your stuff man

    • @557deadpool
      @557deadpool Před 4 lety +12

      This game fucking sucks

    • @Matthew_Klepadlo
      @Matthew_Klepadlo Před 4 lety +27

      557deadpool
      When someone says they like a game that you yourself consider bad…
      Just tell them…
      “All the power to you!”

    • @557deadpool
      @557deadpool Před 4 lety +5

      @@Matthew_Klepadlo not when they try to defend the game and are blatantly wrong

    • @Matthew_Klepadlo
      @Matthew_Klepadlo Před 4 lety +31

      557deadpool
      Sonic Chronicles is a bad game, objectively, but I still love it.
      What’s wrong with playing a game you like?
      I mean you eat pork, ok, but don’t force people to eat pork.
      If you don’t eat pork, fine, but don’t force others not to eat pork.
      Imagine of someone says a game you love is pretty average and kinda stupid.
      But if they say “all the power to you…”
      That’s all you can hope for really.
      I think…

    • @crashschwarzen4642
      @crashschwarzen4642 Před 4 lety +8

      557deadpool oof

  • @jonathancanham9849
    @jonathancanham9849 Před 4 lety +22

    Bout to head to sleep
    'Clement uploads video's
    ...looks like I'm pulling an all-nighter tonight

  • @SlyJMan
    @SlyJMan Před 4 lety +7

    I never realized Kanji and Rise were voiced by Troy Baker and Laura Baily respectively, even though Laura is my favorite voice actress, she somehow disguises her voice so perfectly in Atlus games. That being said, I recommend looking up the story behind Kanji having 2 english voice actors. It's very interesting.

    • @blizzardforonline1954
      @blizzardforonline1954 Před rokem +2

      He still forgot about Fire Emblem: Awakening because Laura is Lucina and Troy is Brady.

  • @wiseguy240Winston
    @wiseguy240Winston Před 4 lety +4

    Fun fact, Anima didn't crystallize them. He took them to the realm of the gods where Pulse brands them.
    Anima didn't use ice magic he turned the hanging edge into crystal.
    When the cast stopped becoming ceith it was actually because Etro intervened feeling pity for the creations she's tied to by blood. Etro unlike pulse, Lindzei and Bhunivlze actually cares about humanity.

  • @NaanosVEVO
    @NaanosVEVO Před 4 lety +1

    This was way sooner than i thought
    Clem, I'm so sorry you had to put yourself through this. Thanks for the good content as always.

  • @TheHeroOfTomorrow
    @TheHeroOfTomorrow Před 4 lety +48

    I’m just gonna leave a like and watch this when I’m not about to sleep.
    Edit: Worth the wait. But I disagree with you about Kingdom Hearts. I mean, if you thought KH2 was the most overly complicated title...

    • @andrewkos5560
      @andrewkos5560 Před 4 lety +4

      By 2010 (when this came out Stateside), we had stuff like Days and maybe BBS, so I can see where Clement's coming from

    • @cartooncritic7045
      @cartooncritic7045 Před 4 lety +3

      @@andrewkos5560 Days and BBS are actually really straightforward titles by the KH series standards. KH2 has a plot-relevant character arc happen almost completely off-screen and didn't get a proper resolution until KH3.

    • @SailorSetsuna7
      @SailorSetsuna7 Před 4 lety

      @@andrewkos5560 As the very big fan of KH's story, I gotta say it was DDD that overcomplicated everything. BBS (my favorite, btw.) served as an explanation to many points that weren't presented in the previous games. Like why was Riku supposed to get Kingdom Key, what led Kairi to end up on Destiny Islands, who Xehanort is etc. DDD added a time travel of all things to the mix and it was just too much in my opinion, even if I love Young Xehanort.
      Days were not harmful, it just expanded on Axel and Roxas' friendship. Which is good in my opinion, because I didn't really buy the connection they had in just KH2.

    • @cartooncritic7045
      @cartooncritic7045 Před 4 lety +2

      @@SailorSetsuna7 I'm going to be that guy who defends the time travel in DDD. Yes, it's overly complicated and since the rules are different from almost anything else in fiction that uses time travel it becomes a hassle to explain to someone who isn't familiar with the series (and even some veterans will need to think on it a bit before they fully get it). However, DDD itself, and indeed even KH3, do make an effort to make the time travel make sense within the context of their stories and don't just leave the player totally hanging, which is more than I can say for half of the shit in FFXIII's story.
      Whether or not the presence of time travel in the series is a good or bad thing is up to the discretion of the player. I for one only see it as a storytelling device, and nothing more.

    • @smashmaster521
      @smashmaster521 Před 4 lety +3

      Am I the only one who has no problem understanding Kingdom Hearts' story. Yes, it's difficult to explain, but it's easy to understand. Now, Chrono Cross, on the other hand...can someone help me figure out that game's story?

  • @danielramsey6141
    @danielramsey6141 Před 4 lety +10

    You know, there are only two things that I like about this game, the Music, and the a Little bit of the Mythology. Lightning, Sazh, and Fang are salvageable, but not entirely so considering what takes place in the two Sequels after this game and it personally sucks ass knowing that Final Fantasy could have been better....if Square had taken the time to focus on it and moved on afterwards.
    You see, Square, instead of doing the smart thing and buying the service of an Unreal engine for development on a game with Completely new Hardware and software at the time of PS3 and XB360 ....they tried to make their own Hardware, and it came in two forms!
    The "Crystal Tools Engine", and the "Luminous Engine" which they tried to use for all Of The Final Fantasy 13 Games during the big *Fabula Nova Crystalis* format that all the 13 games were going to be... Type-0 and FF15 included.
    They were so Focused on those Fucking Engines that they Didn't have a Full development Cycle going for FF13, meaning they Patched Worked this game HARD, with what little development time they had! And goddamn does it show!
    Did I also mention there was a lack of communication between the Teams Handling the Final Fantasy 13 games!? Meaning during Development of FF13, Versus 13, and Agito 13...there were no solid Through line ideas for the Mythos of this New Final Fantasy Dimension. Etro, L'cie, Fal'cie were just that...ideas. how the power of magic was going to work, how Etro connected the worlds through her existence as Goddess of Death, how Nomura was close to turning Final Fantasy Versus 13 into a musical (if there was a stage play or Theater, it would've been interesting as a single segment), but Jesus, nothing about the FNC (Fabula Nova) was never push forwards, instead it was all about Square imagining up the money they were going to make, and that's fucking sad!
    But like I said, only two Things. On youtube, the Creation Mythology is really cool since I'm a big Mythology buff myself, and you can find at least three Videos up on youtube that talk about the mythology. With a little more work, it could've been so much better.
    Also, I won't lie, some of the music is damn good, but not perfect. There are some bad tracks, and while everyone fawns over "Blinded By Light", I say "Saber's Edge" is better...fight me!
    Now can someone explain to me what In god's name was the Taejin's Tower Section?! Cause we all saw the Boss for that place, but it has no fucking reason to exist!

  • @chibmaniac2
    @chibmaniac2 Před 4 lety

    Great stuff Clement, I think this retrospective series is your best work

  • @anothergamer112
    @anothergamer112 Před rokem +6

    Is it me, or does Sazh do Hope's storyline way better? Think about it. They both watched a family member die in front of them and it drives their presence in the story.
    Hope is spiteful and murderous toward Snow and never grows past it until he's nearly killed himself. Snow barely acknowledges Hope until then, so he's not innocent either.
    Meanwhile, Sazh doesn't know there's multiple layers to his sons branding, and when he does, he's mad at Vanille, but he recognizes going John Wick on her will change nothing. He gets depressed at the idea he can't do anything to save his baby boy before being snapped out of it by the one who's fault the whole thing is.

  • @jordirapper
    @jordirapper Před 2 lety +23

    Just imagine being the map designer for final fantasy 13.

    • @anothergamer112
      @anothergamer112 Před 10 měsíci +7

      **draws a line** "Alright I'm done. Time to clock out and get drunk."

    • @nopatiencejoe6376
      @nopatiencejoe6376 Před 6 měsíci

      I'd kill someone if I was the guy who had to make the designs and assets for the background stuff like trees, buildings and whatnot, just for them to be used as hallway decoration.

  • @TheChaosGear
    @TheChaosGear Před 4 lety +23

    You want to know what game did fate and destiny alot better, and came out around the same time?
    xenoblade chronicles

    • @danielramsey6141
      @danielramsey6141 Před 4 lety +3

      THIS!!!

    • @papershadow
      @papershadow Před 4 lety +4

      Xenoblade Chronicles is the game people claim XIII becomes 30 hours in, and still better across the relevant fronts.

    • @cypher838
      @cypher838 Před 3 lety +2

      @@papershadow xenoblade opened up by 3 hours. FF13 50 hours in and then the game ends.

    • @jaretco6423
      @jaretco6423 Před 2 lety

      As someone who really doesn't care about Xenoblade Chronicles, even I can agree.

  • @deadauthorsband
    @deadauthorsband Před 5 měsíci

    I just caught your channel, thanks so much for everything, Clem! Keep making great videos! Huge fan.

  • @jimimarley9088
    @jimimarley9088 Před 4 lety +3

    Lol, your vlog of FFXIII was the very first video I watched of you, and you were the very first CZcamsr I ever followed. 10 years later, we come a full circle.

  • @ameerashourdraws4729
    @ameerashourdraws4729 Před 4 lety +23

    1:12 Zero? Is that you?

    • @dprototype6431
      @dprototype6431 Před 4 lety +6

      I’m really surprised he didn’t use the clip.

    • @DonGEX
      @DonGEX Před 4 lety +6

      The best meme in all of video games!
      Next to "All your base are belong to us" and "Two #9s".

  • @Matthew_Klepadlo
    @Matthew_Klepadlo Před 4 lety +60

    Final Fantasy XIII also doesn’t flow well like the other games at all.
    Sometimes the bosses skyrocket in difficulty, and in order to have a fighting chance, I have to level up.
    What does that mean?
    Fighting battles.
    FOR HOURS ON END.
    You eventually go insane, you get a survival mentality and get used to the awful fucking grinding.
    All this to have a fighting chance for a boss that maybe you might have a better chance at winning.
    If you ever see crazy people on the internet do Pokémon challenges…
    They do so much grinding on random battles and attempt the same fight over and over again, with their buffed-up small chance of winning.
    Final Fantasy XIII, is that for me.

    • @tsyumamatsuthehavenofguard32
      @tsyumamatsuthehavenofguard32 Před 4 lety +5

      The first boss, the first boss is inconsistenly harder than the second boss. What the fuck???

    • @DonGEX
      @DonGEX Před 4 lety +4

      And now Sephiroth is fighting LV7 Cloud and Barret in Reactor 1.

    • @gc6096
      @gc6096 Před 4 lety +1

      Tsyumamatsu TheHavenofGuardia ikr!?

    • @christianlopez707
      @christianlopez707 Před 4 lety +5

      Even common enemies can take way too much time to take down, not to mention that their is a level cap until you beat the boss of a chapter.

    • @whodatninja439
      @whodatninja439 Před 4 lety

      that's true of any Final Fantasy game. You cant rush through them.

  • @TheLucidChiba
    @TheLucidChiba Před 4 lety +8

    37:10 The delivery of that really reminded me of Spoony, in a good way haha
    Love the video.

  • @rmsgrey
    @rmsgrey Před 3 lety +3

    One thing that wasn't brought up in this video is that, while the game does get a lot more open in Chapter 11 (of 13), it's not until after you defeat Orphan and reload your post-game save that the final unlocks happen and you get the final level of each class unlocked for each character.
    In other words, the entire story of the game is just a 30-40 hour on-rails tutorial for the "real" game which happens in the post-game. Apparently that's the main attraction for a number of the game's fans.
    The word I keep coming back to for Final Fantasy XIII is "over-designed" - Square-Enix clearly had some very strong opinions on what the best way to experience the game was, and designed the game to make sure every player has pretty much the same experience (provided the players have similar skill levels and backgrounds). There is some validity to worrying that players may ruin their fun by over-leveling (or get frustrated when their not having got lost and accidentally spent a few hours grinding levels while trying to find the way to progress the plot leaves them under-leveled) and making the game boring for themselves, but ensuring every player faces the exact same level of challenge means that players of different skill levels will have different experiences with no way for them to customise their own experiences to suit them.

  • @SBaby
    @SBaby Před 4 lety +7

    1:00:29 - Finally, someone who realizes that Sazh is a good character. He's one of the other good things about this game.

  • @SBaby
    @SBaby Před 4 lety +21

    4:28 - I think this was about the point where we as gamers started to realize that mainline review sites and magazines are paid by developers to pretty much just say what they want people to hear with no regard to actual merit.

    • @DrMadd
      @DrMadd Před 4 lety +4

      They also say what their audience wants to hear. If a game with a lot of hype doesn’t get a glowing review then the reviewer in question will often receive a ton of unnecessary harassment from fanboys like with Game Spot’s Arkham Knight review or IGN’s Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire review.

    • @SBaby
      @SBaby Před 4 lety +4

      I know from personal experience, as well as from many big youtubers that Square-Enix has a tendency of going after reviewers that criticize their games, especially new games.

    • @DrMadd
      @DrMadd Před 4 lety +1

      SBaby oh yeah I’m sure. They’re hardly the only company.

    • @RoyalFusilier
      @RoyalFusilier Před 3 lety

      It's both frustrating and encouraging to see that a lot of gamer rage over particular bad actors (EA, IGN, Ubisoft, take your pick) could be so easily widened into a meaningful, systemic critique. I hold out hope for that one day.

    • @SBaby
      @SBaby Před 3 lety +1

      @@RoyalFusilier The problem with the list you gave, is it increases every day.

  • @Amaryryry
    @Amaryryry Před 4 lety +2

    Wow. What a fantastic good morning present. Time to sit down and enjoy another FF retrospective vid.

  • @roodude14
    @roodude14 Před 4 lety +13

    At the end, Clement gave himself 5 stars I see what you did there

  • @johntrellston9514
    @johntrellston9514 Před 4 lety +17

    *looks at length*
    OH BABY. This boutta be juicy

  • @Mizticall
    @Mizticall Před 4 lety +5

    You kinda reminded me of Spoony when I watched your Sonic 06 review years ago, but this is extra icing, lol.
    Great review though, I love your style!

  • @gregthehedgehog0956
    @gregthehedgehog0956 Před 4 lety +2

    Oooooh, I've been waiting for this X3
    Hope we get a Clement remembers Kingdom Hearts!
    (also, hope you're doing OK, Clement )

  • @TevyaSmolka
    @TevyaSmolka Před 4 lety +5

    great review man and man teared into this game and i approve.

  • @JokerLord420
    @JokerLord420 Před 4 lety +3

    Literally Troy and Laura have been in everything. It’s crazy on how talented the two are.
    I met Laura at SDCC a few years ago, she’s very very nice. I tried meeting Troy as well but I failed.

  • @Relytia
    @Relytia Před 4 lety +3

    Hearing someone thoroughly dismantle Final Fantasy XIII for 2 hours is seriously sending me back to 2012 when Spoony did his review. Those were such better times...
    Great job on this one Clement!

  • @marcdaniel0321
    @marcdaniel0321 Před 2 lety

    Clement, this is amazing. You did a geat job on this.

  • @shockman2178
    @shockman2178 Před 4 lety

    Oh god it’s finally here. Clement you trooper. I too live in Canada and I see the time that you uploaded it.

  • @Jackelbeaver
    @Jackelbeaver Před 4 lety +17

    it's a game with great mechanics, oodles of hidden depth, fantastic visuals, great music, and then bad design and direction. I'm convinced it's a mostly fixable game if you just move shit around and fix the tutorial to actually teach people the correct way to play it.

    • @raze2012_
      @raze2012_ Před 4 lety +1

      yeah, of all the FF games, I feel 13 is one that'd benefit the most, by far, from some balance mods to really fix its shortcomings (especially since 13-2 fixed a lot of these already).
      Shame the only remaster of it is on Xbox one of all places.

    • @557deadpool
      @557deadpool Před 4 lety +1

      No it really doesn't, everything is fucking shit

    • @Emerald_Solace
      @Emerald_Solace Před 4 lety +7

      557deadpool stop bein a lil bitch on everyones comments.

    • @557deadpool
      @557deadpool Před 2 lety

      @@Emerald_Solace stop having bad opinions

    • @GodOfOrphans
      @GodOfOrphans Před 2 lety +1

      @@557deadpool Lol you're one to talk since all you do is bash without actually even trying to be contructive. That's about as bad an opinion as possible the "it just sucks" take, that's banal tedious and completely unhelpful to anyone.

  • @jesusa.adorno6933
    @jesusa.adorno6933 Před 4 lety +5

    1:13 Who’s reminded of Red Letter Media? “Pass over the Vicodins. Wait a minute.....We need Ambiens.”

    • @GoodLosertjo
      @GoodLosertjo Před 4 lety +1

      *Final Fantasy XIII is the most disappointing thing since my son...*

  • @YusukeKnight
    @YusukeKnight Před 4 lety

    Great review man good to see you back

  • @ecksluss
    @ecksluss Před 4 lety +20

    It's a great review. I love XIII, the entire trilogy actually, by I completely understand those who hate it. But I do feel like the battle system is still oversimplified in a dishonest way by most people, even you.
    You failed to mention how the paradigm shift system rewards you for constantly switching between them in that every other time you switch at exactly the right time as your last attack hits, your atb gauge completely fills up automatically once you're done switching. You can control this further by manually selecting your attacks and pressing triangle to initiate your attacks early without having to use all of your attacks on your turn. It's a good way to early cancel, get 1 or 2 hits in and shift to a medic/sentinel setup that already has a full ATB gauge.
    There are so many intricacies to the battle system that get glosses over by people.

    • @okagron
      @okagron Před 4 lety +10

      The problem is that you don't need to do any of that, the game never punishes you for not using the combat's full potential. The game also awards 5 stars like candy, even if you use auto battle, so it makes people not want to use the intricacies of the combat. The mere fact he was doing battles in half the time the devs expected you to while just using auto battle shows how lenient the game is.

    • @ecksluss
      @ecksluss Před 4 lety +6

      @@okagron doesn't matter. I always play combat in all my games to do the absolute best possible (not talking about ranking) so I played the way I described anyway.
      Also it's still being dishonest and oversimplified to say "you can beat the game using only auto battle" because you have to utilize your paradigm shifts properly. And set them up properly as well. He even mentioned a fair amount of instances where the battles require you to be on point with your timing and setup. So..

    • @okagron
      @okagron Před 3 lety +2

      @@ecksluss The Final Fantasy games prior punished you for not using the combat's full potential, so it's a big problem in 13 when it doesn't do that to the player. So it doesn't matter if you use the combat's full potential, there's no requrement for such a thing and that's bad design.
      I beat the game using auto battle at the bare minimum 90% and didn't had much issue. A friend of mine who also played the game also beat it only using auto battle. So no, no one is simplying and being dishonest when they claim you can play the game in auto battle to the end. That's how ridiculously easy the game is.

    • @GodOfOrphans
      @GodOfOrphans Před 2 lety +3

      @@okagron I sincerely doubt that, there are several main story bosses that will stomp people who just try to auto battle through things blindly, and again your discounting the need to watch the flow of battle and know when to paradigm shift, that requires manual input. Even in most of the easy fights auto battle won't save you if you aren't pradigm switching and that's even for trash mobs. That's the real problem is that people keep acting like paradigm switching happens automatically as part of the auto battle or something. If your complaint is that paradigm switching isn't engaging enough on it's own fine but stop saying you can just auto battle through the game when the fact that you're constantly paradigm switching already disproves that. Also most FF are decidedly on the easy side and it's really only the post game that demands mastery of the mechanics to succeed, 13 is not unique in that regard, hell 4's difficulty or lack thereof is a damned meme for crying out loud both in the fandom and in the games themselves.

    • @557deadpool
      @557deadpool Před 2 lety

      @@GodOfOrphans no they don't, at all

  • @BigA207
    @BigA207 Před 4 lety +21

    I’m glad Xenoblade Definitive Edition exists so that we can see what this game could’ve been. Pretty and fun, with good gameplay, exploration and story.

    • @ScorbunGame
      @ScorbunGame Před 4 lety +8

      The worst part of FF13 is that it has a lot of concepts that COULD have worked. A race of god like beings branding humans and essentially dooming them for all eternity? Could've been a great set up for a story about denying fate and choosing your own path. The paradigm system could've been great if the game let you customise your party right off the bat instead of locking characters to 3 roles each.
      I'm happy the stagger system is being salvaged for FF7R, it gives me hope that Square will rework and salvage all the other good ideas FF13 had that were waisted on it.

    • @DanielPage
      @DanielPage Před 4 lety +3

      This is exactly what I was thinking. When he was describing things, they're essentially the opposites of Xenoblade 1 and 2, both of which are incredible games.

    • @Clesarie
      @Clesarie Před 4 lety

      Xenoblade? Man I don't get this game. The battle system is shit and plays itself. Its like a offline mmo. Same with ff12. Its just totally fucking not fun at all. I want to love those games but the gameplay is terrible.

    • @cartooncritic7045
      @cartooncritic7045 Před 4 lety +7

      @@Clesarie The game only "plays itself" in that auto-attacks are a thing, but you have to not understand how the game is played at all if you think the auto-attacks are where the combat begins and ends. That's setting aside the Artes, Talent Gauge, Party Meter, Chain Attacks, Tension, Elemental Orbs, Specials, Overdrives, etc.

    • @Clesarie
      @Clesarie Před 4 lety

      I completely get that saying it plays itself is and over statement. I'm saying that the combat is boring as hell and I just don't get how people enjoy it. There's a reason ff12 I'd the worst selling game in the series. it's mostly unppealing to people

  • @TimReviewsEveryNAWiiGame
    @TimReviewsEveryNAWiiGame Před 2 lety +7

    Never played this game but going off this video 13 seems like a victim of PS3 era game development where graphical fidelity expectations often outpaced the creation of development tools that could streamline things. Resulted in a lot of games feeling very tech demoy.

  • @skyrasen383
    @skyrasen383 Před 4 lety

    Something that helps the battle system is that you can execute commands without filling the whole ATB bar, it saves you when you need to guard things at specific times

  • @Milesknight319
    @Milesknight319 Před rokem

    I discovered this channel today and I’ve been watching your videos dude I love your videos

  • @SuperDanMan11100
    @SuperDanMan11100 Před 4 lety +7

    "But we're Pulse l'cie, enemies of Cocoon."

  • @KeeBlade
    @KeeBlade Před 4 lety +7

    1:18:09 YO VANILLE COPPIN' A FEEL
    THAT DON'T LOOK LIKE SUBTEXT TO ME

  • @Issac_The_Last_N7
    @Issac_The_Last_N7 Před 3 lety +4

    I love the Final Fantasy 13 trilogy, especially 13-2 & Lightning Returns. The longer time flows the more i miss it

  • @g3neralrevan27
    @g3neralrevan27 Před 4 lety +5

    clement there's a slight benefit to choosing your own abilities and queuing up your own commands. If you default the cursor to abilities after the initial selection you can choose "repeat", which is faster than auto battling. I also found that your own selections are far better than what auto-battle wants to do, as it will often switch up animations when using aero or sparkstrike when it would've been faster to spam aero 3 times. Auto-battle often doesn't build the gauge as optimally as it could either.
    But, to your point, auto-battle is still to serviceable for too long. "There should be a chance of death with every battle" is inherently flawed with the other conventions with the series, and that's why they got rid of mp and healed you for the next fight. Best quote I've heard about this game is that it takes a higher level of knowledge to enjoy the game than to beat it, which applies on so many levels. I remember having so much fun with all the different variations and combinations you had to do for getting 5 star rankings in the Titan trials. Was it still tedious? YEAH
    Your thoughts are always fun to digress with :) stay golden

  • @vulpinedeity3379
    @vulpinedeity3379 Před 4 lety +12

    She wasn't given a codename. She chose to change her name to Lightning to represent the strength she needed after her and Serah's parents died.

  • @maxgarcia6231
    @maxgarcia6231 Před 4 lety +7

    When I first played the game I thought that Fang and Vanille were siblings. Of course, I still didn't know what a l'cie was, so it's not worth much to say that lol

  • @Memehuskie
    @Memehuskie Před rokem

    Thank you for summarizing the story

  • @ghoster37
    @ghoster37 Před 4 lety +1

    U can push y or triangle depending on the console to use how ever many atbs u want to use. If it fills up one or 2 atbs u can push the triangle or y button to just use that many. U don't have to wait for the whe bar to fill up. I like using the ability command menu. I never use auto battle.

  • @benburke3015
    @benburke3015 Před 4 lety +14

    14:55 "Magic Pixie Anime Girl". I love it!

  • @TechnicSky
    @TechnicSky Před rokem +3

    1:23:20
    To be fair, that must mean that they can’t *directly* attack Cocoon. Aka, old man can’t just transform and start destroying stuff.

  • @Fabriciod_Crv
    @Fabriciod_Crv Před 4 lety

    hey clement, i'd be happy to see v-log reviews come back to the channel, they were great!

  • @MACZ2021
    @MACZ2021 Před 4 lety +2

    Been waiting on this one since Clement started the retrospective. Very solid points and it was worth the wait.
    I honestly don't know what it is about the game but I've played through it twice and it never bothered me as much as it did for other people. Maybe I'm just easily entertained, but I don't think I ever really cared about the flaws enough to where it made me bored and not want to play more of it.
    I think there's two things that did it for me.
    Once I figured out the battle system or maybe got used to it would be appropriate here, I think I was having fun with the battles since I was doing stuff besides auto battle.
    Then as more story got revealed and I began to understand lore and stuff, it gave me context for earlier parts of the game and I was all ah so that's why that stuff happened. I still think the way the story gets presented at the start where nothing gets explained right away and you have to consult the data logs for info is absolutely dumb and that's one thing I wish was actually different about the game.
    Sometimes I feel like they wanted to try something different with XIII and mostly laid the groundwork for stuff and then in XIII-2 they took feedback from people for the first game and fine tuned aspects about it to make it suck even less.
    While I genuinely like the game, I'm not gonna go out on a limb and consider it to be flawless cause even when I'm enjoying myself with it there's stuff where I know it could have been much better in some way and I'm sad the game turned out the way it did.
    On a side note, I never knew this game mentions Yeul. Then again I've never read every data log so I just never was aware she gets mentioned here and wasn't just made for the sequel.

  • @raze2012_
    @raze2012_ Před 4 lety +3

    oh boy, I've been waiting for this. Given what was said before, Proabably gonna be the rantiest retrospective since the Sonic '06 one (which is what got me here to begin with). I'll make popcorn!

  • @isaiahrivers7117
    @isaiahrivers7117 Před 4 lety +35

    Wonder if Square was trying to replace FF7 with this game and have it as it's mascot or something but failed miserably.

    • @TheRezro
      @TheRezro Před 4 lety +2

      Neh. After team which made Xenogers left company, due to being displeased about they creative freedom (creating acclaimed Monolith Soft). Square was left without they core asset. Final Fantasy IX was intended as farewell to this franchise as at the time genre was considered as dying (it was, what lead to weird MMO experiments, FFX was also poorly received*). Then threaten of bankruptcy Square fused with Enix. It keep company existence, but Enix making far lighter and generic Dragon Quest games lack proper "finally" experience what remnants of old team couldn't replicate. Ironically I would say that Kingdom Heart franchise was one what helped rebuild proper developer team, so there is hope for future. Keep my fingers crossed that FFVII remake would work!
      *In long run it was still last good FF game before dark age.

    • @jetforcejuno7166
      @jetforcejuno7166 Před 4 lety +14

      @@TheRezro "FFX was also poorly received" Um no it wasn't, it was and still is the most popular FF game in Japan and the second most popular internationally.

    • @psycholuigiman
      @psycholuigiman Před 4 lety +5

      I'm pretty sure it was intended to be the next bit thing comparable to FF7. Maybe not replace it, but come close. Just looks at how they built it up and made all these plans that fell through because the first game got them off to such a terrible start.

    • @TheRezro
      @TheRezro Před 4 lety +4

      @@jetforcejuno7166 Sells don't equal popularity. And because it has own fans it doesn't mean that it was well received by fandom as a whole (Star Wars Prequel Fan Syndrome). Game was broadly hated by Final Fantasy fans for its numerous legitimate flaws. They mostly changed opinion after future games become worst and its lore better known.

    • @megamike15
      @megamike15 Před 4 lety +9

      @@TheRezro no one hated on 10 until spoony reviewed it and that was years after the game came out.

  • @ramavalos
    @ramavalos Před 4 lety +1

    I think the Nautilus scenario was supposed to have planned DLC and square did cancel their DLC plans for FF XIII in the PC port you can still find some of those DLC scrapped plans. If you talk to the staff in Nautilus they keep talking about future attractions coming to the amusement park and its one of the few areas where you can backtrack throughout the level.

  • @shadowofdread7018
    @shadowofdread7018 Před 4 lety +2

    58:13
    10/10 voice acting there Hope. Really sold me on all that pent up angst

  • @Sensu0
    @Sensu0 Před 3 lety +2

    @ClementJ64 , I understand your frustration with the combat. But, did you know you don't have to wait until your ATB gauges fill completely? You can press the X button (or was it Y on 360?) to start executing the commands you have already filled up the gauges for and the stack of commands reset after that, so you can do something different afterwards. The partially filled ATB gauge at the end remain as well.
    In the battle where Snow got killed by a Gatling Gun attack ( 0:37:35 ), I could see you had at least 1 ATB gauge filled to activate Steelguard. Had you used it, Snow might have survived. You could even have decided to gamble a bit when provoking, so you could only use 3 out of 4 ATBs for that, and then stack 2 ATBs for Steelguard, which would help a lot if your provoking turned out to be successful.

    • @charlestonson2200
      @charlestonson2200 Před 5 měsíci +1

      I think he’s totally wrong on the battle system, it’s really in-depth and very different from anything that came before. I died a couple times in the Snow fight that you mentioned and I re-evaluated my strategy to include Steelgaurd. If you approach it on its own terms and really pay attention, it’s one of the most addictive battle systems in a JRPG.

  • @TFSned
    @TFSned Před 4 lety +14

    I really liked the battle system, stagger mechanic and difficulty curve, and am really glad Lightning Returns and VII Remake were able to take what worked from this game without everything else that dragged it down.

    • @557deadpool
      @557deadpool Před 4 lety

      The battle system sucks and the stagger gauge deviled the game into filling the bar to do any real damage and there is no difficulty curve. It's easy as shit most of the time meanwhile occasionally getting boss battles that are hard because of bullshit and not because of good design

  • @DasKame
    @DasKame Před 4 lety +1

    Great Video as always, can't wait untill 13-2

  • @monkeydjimmy5169
    @monkeydjimmy5169 Před 3 lety +1

    20:36
    Oh that actually answered my question LMAO
    you are 1 step ahead of me there 😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣
    Great job 👌👌👌

  • @Fever_Dream
    @Fever_Dream Před 4 lety +8

    "You know how annoying it is to fight something for 8 minutes, slip up once and lose all that progress?"
    Someone has not played Final Fantasy XIV. That's how raiding works in that game.

    • @557deadpool
      @557deadpool Před 4 lety +1

      He doesn't play MMOs iirc

    • @PervertedNovaxc3
      @PervertedNovaxc3 Před 4 lety +1

      It's worse than that, because so many of the latest raids are like 10-14 minutes+ depending.

    • @557deadpool
      @557deadpool Před 4 lety

      @@PervertedNovaxc3 boi ive played League matches longer than that

    • @PervertedNovaxc3
      @PervertedNovaxc3 Před 4 lety +1

      @@557deadpool Okay, doesn't really diminish the point at all.

    • @557deadpool
      @557deadpool Před 4 lety

      @@PervertedNovaxc3 also, what you forget is that raids in MMOs are generally just as long if not longer so i don't get what you're complaining about at all

  • @misapheonix
    @misapheonix Před 2 lety +3

    As an avid FF fan (as of VII), I currently find myself unable to replay the older titles without getting bored. XIII is actually the only one I'm sticking out! It's technically old enough and I'm finding this to be a very unique JRPG experience, ahead of 99% of the same anime artstyle, story progression and fairly strict character setup and dynamic. If your bored of modern day JRPGs I would encourage trying this trilogy!

    • @StewNWT
      @StewNWT Před rokem +1

      FFIV is NEVER BORING.

  • @MisterPuck
    @MisterPuck Před 3 lety +1

    When you were talking about Gran Pulse and wondering where the people were that Cocoon was supposed to be afraid of, and then of course they weren’t there.
    Well, isn’t that the point? Gran Pulse and it’s people were the boogeyman for the Cocoon leadership to use to control the people. But that boogeyman has been wiped out for a long time. Cocoon is literally all that’s left of humanity. There are no more people on Gran Pulse. They were either exterminated after the war, or wiped out by the monsters on the surface. But the fact that no surface civilization survived is chilling. Even if the game were totally remade, I wouldn’t want this changed.
    This is actually also a point in XIII-2, where humans from Cocoon are repopulating and rebuilding society on Gran Pulse.

  • @daehan8227
    @daehan8227 Před 4 lety

    Though honestly I am curious. What do you planned at the end of the retrospective series? A top 10 or 5 of FF? Knowing you love 7 the most and 10 as your 2nd Fav or maybe based on your favorite main antagonists, protagonists, and partymembers.

  • @vulpinedeity3379
    @vulpinedeity3379 Před 4 lety +11

    Press triangle to skip into actions that are already loaded without waiting for the ATB to fully charge. Then you can use the Steelguard Snow is ready to use.

    • @557deadpool
      @557deadpool Před 4 lety +2

      Except he clearly did that

    • @vulpinedeity3379
      @vulpinedeity3379 Před 4 lety +2

      No, he waited for it fill up all the way, and got shredded. Or he pressed it after he was already stunlocked. Either way, it's his own fault, not the game's.

    • @557deadpool
      @557deadpool Před 4 lety +1

      @@vulpinedeity3379 no he pressed it prior to the stun lock. And yes it's still the game's fault for its shitty design in forcing a game over when the leader dies and having a basic enemy being able to insta-kill you for no reason

    • @PolarPhantom
      @PolarPhantom Před 3 lety +1

      @@557deadpool What are you actually talking about? Anyway, even if I agree that the leader dying is game over is a flaw - and I do - I mean. He didn't press Triangle. He complains that he has to wait for the bar to fill up and never mentions Triangle/Y. I think you're confused.
      And if he did do it and still got shredded? The game gives you plenty of time to prepare. That being said I dislike that attack myself, but I dislike it cause it's annoying. I'm not gonna go so far and say it's "Shitty Design" or the game doesn't have a good reason - especially since Death isn't all that much of a pain in XIII. It's annoying but it's only one enemy in one area that you can quickly learn how to deal with. I say I disagree with the design choice. Because I'm not trying to be angry.

    • @557deadpool
      @557deadpool Před 3 lety

      @@PolarPhantom He literally did it in the video
      No the game really doesn't give you time. It's shitty design whether you like it or not taking damage over something you can hardly control is inherently shitty design. And it doesn't matter if death isn't a big deal (which is already shitty design in of itself), a death shouldn't happen at all in a situation like that if the game was well designed.

  • @gamestation2690
    @gamestation2690 Před 4 lety +3

    I guess even Final Fantasy couldn't escape the unlucky number from being unlucky.

  • @luckystarnine4812
    @luckystarnine4812 Před 4 lety +2

    Thanks, needed somethin to watch : )

  • @Alice89chan
    @Alice89chan Před 4 lety +2

    ''All's well that ends well!'' as a note in the ending once Coccoon is blasted and powered down is a bit poetic teehee