We Were All Wrong About Final Fantasy XIII
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- čas přidán 20. 06. 2024
- A game at war with itself.
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Chapters:
00:00:00 - Chapter 1
00:16:59 - Chapter 2
00:23:39 - Chapter 3
00:36:43 - Chapter 4
00:57:15 - Chapter 5
01:02:21 - Chapter 6
01:07:03 - Chapter 7
01:21:59 - Chapter 8
01:35:02 - Chapter 9
01:52:51 - Chapter 10
02:10:01 - Chapter 11
02:38:07 - Chapter 12
02:40:48 - Chapter 13
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Footage Credits:
• Final Fantasy XIII Ret...
• ACTION BUTTON REVIEWS ...
• Final Fantasy VII (PS1...
• Final Fantasy VIII | G...
• FINAL FANTASY XIII All...
• Final Fantasy XIII: Ci...
• Final Fantasy XIII - B...
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All music is from the FF13 soundtrack
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Don't decry or downthumb, I dutifully develop the dropping of dream distances directly. - Zábava
That’s a powerful “we”
Please speak for yourself, I rode the trilogy from start to finish.
2 and 3 are better too!
Damn straight.
Lightning Returns is probably my most replayed game. Not even Dark Cloud got that many ojtta me and I bought it on every release
I did as well. Day one purchases and loves. All three.
Thank you.
I have been a lorediver for the Trilogy for over a decade now, and I have devoted so much work and time to study these games, the details, the connections, the symbolism, the story beneath the surface. There are finer points in here that I would personally go over more in-depth, lore-wise, but I have been there and I know it would take much more than three hours, so your work will definitely reach much more people who might want to give the Trilogy a shot. For so long, we have been screaming into the void, and what we could do individually was very limited-but with people with a larger audience spreading appreciation for this criminally underrated and mind-blowingly complex and deep story, I believe there will be a day in which the finer points will reveal themselves by others' curiosity. So I thank you for taking the plunge and lending us your voice. :)
As someone who loves the lore of this whole trilogy, we need a 13-2 video. Fantastic work!
Just watching all the footage, it's astounding how good this game still looks. As good if not better than many games coming out today
The linearity of the game allowed for extremely highly detailed environments, 13-2 still looks pretty good but the game chugs because it's a lot more open and Lightning Returns chugs even harder because the engine is not capable of supporting the environments despite their incredibly low level of detail for the time.
This is it. This is THE FFXIII video essay. FFXIII has long been my favorite FF game for all the reasons you laid out. While playing it, the story and gameplay and legit woven so TIGHTLY that you can feel the intention of each character.
I cry every time I play this game several times because of how much emotion each character has.
Also the ending hurts my very soul knowing that in an instant, Lightning disappears.
Lightning is transient. Instant and powerful, then gone. Like it was never there.
Eclair Farron is a character I grew to love more as time went on... I rarely have the time to play big jrpgs anymore but I may just return to my old PS3 copies of 13 through 13-3
You missed an important thing with the accessories system: Equiping similar accessories, or accessories in a set, can yield secondary bonuses (like physical wall +5 or +10). This actually showed up in your video while you were mixing and matching accessories.
As an example of how useful this can be: In the section in Palenpoem where you control Snow and Hope, there is a regular enemy that can one-shot Hope with an attack that deals a ton of small hits. Preach in his recent playthrough had to deal with this and kept getting destroyed. Putting the Physical Wall ability on by mix/matching accessories made it much more tolerable for Hope to survive this ability.
The cost of secondary roles is criminal.
It's true for some abilities (like Lightning's Haste and Reprieve and Vanille's Faithra), but for specific abilities (Lightning's Imperil, Enthunder or Elude) or for the role itself (Sentinel needs only Provoke if you want to better tank big hits like Bart3's Ultima, Hope's Ruin needs 6000 CP), there's good enough and don't need much.
By the time you get to Gran Pulse you are making so many points so quickly that the cost becomes entirely negligible
One point I'm glad you mentioned in this has been the fact that the characters are actually acting normal per their stimuli. I wholeheartedly agree with this. While this is not my favorite final fantasy, my favorite ff character, Hope, is in it. The way people treat him about his own stimuli on his actions baffle me. Honestly, he acts more like his age than anyone else. He is 15. That age, I was dealing with a l9t and ended up picking up this game as an ff fan. I found kindred spirit in him and his growth helped me quite a bit myself.
I personally love Vanille, Fang, and Hope more than most characters in the franchise. They feel so well realized by the end of 13.
Hope is the heart of the game frfr.
If you think Hope was acting like a normal 15 year old, you were almost guaranteed absolutely insufferable at that age.
@@Djungelurban you definitely were too... Because all teenagers are extremely off and don't understand how to talk to people. If you think 15 year olds are suppose to be like adults in anyway, then you're probably an insufferable adult.
@@snazzydrew Hope has the emotional maturity of a 6 year old, my partner's 8 year old niece is way more level headed and reasonable than him. There's a happy middle ground between being an adult and Hope (or more like an ocean of emotional maturity) and vast majority of teenagers are within that range. Hope is a self-centered brat, if he was a sociopath and in a position of power, he'd literally be Joffrey Baratheon.
The game over music happens after Brynhildr fight. I think there's a 3rd one but I don't remember where.
Also, a bit sad you didn't talk much about chapter 12's context. The hatred and fear against Pulse the governement put in its citizens heads came to fruition. 3 armies (our group, the PSICOM/Guardian Core and the Cavalry) that have the same goal (to save Cocoon) are against each other thanks to the Fal'Cie's manipulations. It's an all out war between 5 sides (Cocoon Fal'cies, Pulse L'Cie, Cocoon Army, Pulse Army and the Cavalry) whom I know no story that did the same. It's further shown in the gameplay with many triangular battles and unreachable fights.
Absolutely the best video essay on FFXIII on CZcams. This was actually my first Final Fantasy game and I love it to bits. I didn't think anyone else thought about this game and every aspect of it as much as I have, but I'm happy to be proven wrong. Great analysis and takeaways. Here's to a hopeful re-release of this game on PS5 and Xbox, even just with 4K/60fps options and a few quality of life improvements. Fingers crossed!
Oh, if anyone is going to replay this game... Two tips.
Lightning: Look into making her a Sentinel. There's some nasty builds where she's practically untouchable.
Snow: Funny enough, due to animation speeds, he's one of the best Ravagers in the game. He can fire off more spells per second because he finishes up his animations faster.
Lightning doesn't get any guard abilities, and snow is actually the slowest caster in the game. This is probably the worst advice possible. I assumed you had mentioned ATb refresh or something
@iamthehobo Sentinel Lightning revolves more around Evade/Elude and Accessories, keeping her alive for the few attacks that do hit her. It's a fun alternative build for when she's the leader and you don't want too many random deaths. It's not the best thing since sliced bread but if you want to make sure Lightning lives while she is your leader then it's a funny gimmick option. Makes it pretty easy to recover from a mess up with Lightning using Pheonix downs after.
I'd have to boot up FF13 again to check Snow's cast speed, I don't remember him being faster/slower than anyone else but he is a decent ravager early, I think he gets Aero and Blizzard which is fine. Critically I think he's one of the Ravagers that gets Overwhelm earliest which makes him great in Tri-Disaster or Rav/Rav/Com (can't remember the name of this paradigm) in the mid game. It does fall off late game though from what I felt/remember playing.
@@Layonbedge you know what if she isn't leader that is actually a really cool build sorry if it seemed like I was coming at you personally
@@iamthehoboSnow is the fastest caster in the game, that's in part why he is part of the final team in the speedrun, you must have mistaken with Sahz which indeed has a bad casting animation.
@@nesoukkefka1741 okay that's two for two guess I'm super wrong LOL
I'm gonna politely ask everyone in the industry to stop using the acronym "CP" for in game resources
Let's normalize crystal points and not child predators.
I'm gonna politely and with force demand that people stop using children for porn.
HP, MP, AP, XP is all you need
Old meme I don't think it comes up anymore
"It's an old meme, sir, but it checks out."
@@davemarx7856 🤓
It took time and a decade of exhausting open world games fatigue but people finally understand and started to appreciate XIII’s.
FFX is also a linear game yet considered one of the best in the franchise. Both games explained linearity thru story, in X you are doing the pilgrimage, in XIII youre running from the government
I wanted to like this game but man I just could not get into it at all
The issue is yhe pacing. X breaks up the hallways by having you visit towns and do cloister trials. You're also mostly free to backtrack at your leisure, and there are a few minigames for variety. Plus, most importantly, the sphere grid gives you profundity control over your party growth, especially in the International/HD version.
XIII is a straight shot in both exploration and character growth. You can never go backward, never re-explore an area, and with two exceptions the whole game is linear dungeons. If you enjoy thr combat you can't even freely engage with it because of how enemies spawn on the overworld, although there's little incentive to do so anyway because the game caps your crystarium level every chapter.
Being linear isn't inherently a bd thing-- my first RPG was Grandia, where the storyline frequently resulted in points of no return as it propelled you forward. But the pacing really presents a high hurdle for XIII, made worse if you don't click with the characters (which are the focus of yhe storytelling, so if you don't care about them, the gameplay emergence simply can't do the heavy lifting to carry you to the end.)
I say this as somebody who really WANTS to like XIII, its themes hit all the right buttons for me and I didn't hate my experience, but it is flawed on a number of fundamental levels that can make it frustrating to engage with.
The best thing about FF13 is being linear iMO
@@MmeCShadow Well said.
As someone who has multiple XIII themed tattoos, it's actually really gratifying to see someone that basically gets this entry in a pretty similar way that I do and appreciates this game for the Good and the Messy. There's so much to love on this game, a lot of heart clearly went into this game despite its troubled development and it always sat wrong with me how the game often has a lot of detractors repeating criticisms of the game that are actually factually untrue.
Personal point of annoyance has been a bit of the music. The OST can be really incredible but it relies really heavily on motifs in a lot of it's tracks. The main melody of "Promise" features a lot and echoes around a lot of games areas. "Blinded by Light"s beats are repeated in a lot of basic tension tracks and Hope's theme feels universally applied to a lot of the more emotional scenes. It's likely the reason why the OST kinda blends together for myself, you, and a lot of others. Despite the sequel's flaws, I will give it to that game that it has a lot more track diversity that keeps the soundscape fresh (even if there is a lot of motif repetition in that as well).
Another bit I really like is how the mechanics of progressing through the Archlyte Steppe and surrounding areas really reinforces the theme of Pulse. You are at the bottom of the food chain fighting for survival as you start off fighting easy plant-life, moving onto small wolves, needing to take advantage of 3-way fights to get the upper hand, to fighting behemoths and monstrosities unaided. I think it really does convey the feeling of rising to the top in a fight for survival in a pretty organic way.
I f love Pulse! The game finally leaves you alone and on you're own, you can progress at youre own pace and come across challenges that can really kill you❤
But now I gotta know what tattoos you have. 😭 I really hope to get a brand one day, Blazefire Saber, Overture and Crimson Blitz, and Mog and a chocobo.
I love FF13, I read all Ultimania, have the soundtrack listening nearly every week since its release, fantasize about living in the world. I like Oerba village a lot, I go there to relax sometimes
Pro tips: the auto battle commands puts in all the optimal battle commands depending on the targets. Meaning you and your A.I. controlled party might accidentally heal the enemies if they're using random attacks. To prevent this, LIBRA EVERYTHING. Libra and Librascope are your best friends. Unlocking weakness and knowledge on enemies will allow auto battle and party members to perform optimal actions and not throw out random stuff.
I started XIII on a whim after seeing it sit in my Steam library for a while, and I came out thinking "....wait, this was the FF title that everyone said was mostly a big interactive cutscene?"
I loved the style most of all, and didn't mind the linearity since there was generally still a challenge that needed to be overcome. "Mash auto-battle to win" is a myth that got passed around by casual observers and others that wanted to be funny over factual. I mean, I told some of my family members, who weren't interested in FF to begin with, about this auto-battle feature and presented it in the way the memes did, and it was fun to watch their reactions thinking that it was "stupid" to have a video game where you click a button, click an enemy, and then sit back and watch the game play itself.
I feel bad for writing this game off for the longest time as if the devs mistakenly thought that players just wanted to click a button and watch all of these flashy moves be performed by characters after offloading all thought and strategy onto the game itself. I'd love to see the detractors try to take down an adamantoise on their own without looking up a way on how to cheese the fight.
6:10 - In the example you gave about the man saying he's not a l'cie, the alternative _isn't_ him describing the l'cie on screenーit is the story _showing or hinting to us_ what a l'cie is or what makes a l'cie scary, thus indicating why the boy is scared. The guideline often cited is "show, don't tell". Of course, XIII eventually does that. People forget that this opening is meant as a narrative hook, to get the audience to ask those very questions, like "what is a l'cie?" or "why is this man saying he's not one?", etc.
I do think the game's narrative has an execution problem regarding how much important info is relegated to its menu lore book. Of course, if you stay up-to-date with it, like reading, and are invested in the story the game is trying to tell, the game is probably one of the most compelling FF stories ever told (imo). But if you find any of these things hard, uninteresting, or perhaps were ignorant that you were supposed to be reading them, I think it's completely valid to find the overall game's narrative more lacking.
Yea, the alternative isn't to have Sazh exposit about l'cie in that moment, it's to establish what a l'cie is (or at least, that a l'cie is something ordinary people would be scared of) beforehand. Like, maybe have a news broadcast for a moment on the train before hell breaks loose where the term is mentioned.
@@DuskoftheTwilightThat wouldn't be any better than what's in the actual game. Either the newscaster gives the exact same information that Sazh does in this scene - L'cie bad, scary, possibly on this train - or he gives a lecture on what a L'cie is to a train full of people who already know what it is, the same as if our newscasters began every election update this year by explaining what a "president" was in detail.
Once again I have to say "You mean, You/Yall were wrong about FF13 and or FF7 Advent Childen"
Because I was all about it back in the day and tried to tell people how they missed the point on it.
It's the same everytime, gotta let people sit on something for long enough until they see it differently.
Wake me up when "We Were Wrong About: Final Fantasy Spirits Within" bro.
I remember enjoying Spirits Within back when it came out, but I was also a child. I should watch it again sometime to see if it was actually good or if everyone who hates it is right.
While FF XIII isn’t my favorite game in the series, I don’t think it deserves the hate. A lot of the complaints I’ve heard could also be applied to other JRPGs. Especially in the FF series.
“It’s too linear!” So is FF X, but no one complained about that. Yes, you don’t get a lot of freedom to explore different towns like in X, but it’s like you pointed out: it makes sense with the narrative. Hell, even when you were a fugitive in FF X, no one really treated you like it, so it didn’t have much weight to it.
“The characters are annoying” I’ve heard similar complaints about VIII and XII, but those got ported to modern consoles.
“The combat sucks!” It’s not that different from the combat that’s been around since FF IV. Auto play? Don’t like it, then don’t use it
half of the reason people hate 13 is because it's defenders use these terrible talking points.
you debunk your own comparison with 10, without even mentioning the airship or the arena.
you don't even defend the characters, just say 8 and 12 have dumb characters too.
you argue you can just not use autoplay when 2/3rds of the party are permanently AI.
these things make 13 fans look delusional.
My problem with XIII isn't linearity, is that there wasn't anything else to do except fight. And since I though the story was mediocre it's reason for not having any side content didn't endear itself to me either.
This is why I enjoyed 13-2 a lot more. Lots more side content, challenges, mini games, exploration and a much more interesting hero/villain dynamic.
but this is character driven and plot heavy. Having just played FFVII Rebirth and suffering through 100 mini-games of various qualities, I prefer this.
@j.r.cilliangreen4083 Rebirth over did it on the Minigames, but I'd still choose it over 16 which doesn't have any. Minigames are a chance to break the tension and relax a little, or that's why they typically exist. There's to many in Rebirth but to few is even more detrimental in my opinion.
13-2 for sure overcomes the lack of side content, it was a common complaint/criticism of the first game that was addressed just like the linearity of environments.
Chocobo racing is a lot of fun, I spent like 2 or 3 days on that alone.
Some of the characters and their dialogue were a major cringe for me. And what's up with the chicken coming out of the guy's head? lol
This is quite honestly the most outstanding FFXIII video essay I’ve seen. Thank you so much for making it. I feel incredibly vindicated knowing that someone else saw what I did in FFXIII all those years ago when I played it as my first FF. I was ridiculed everywhere I went for proclaiming how this game had an emotional impact on me. I’m so happy this stigma is finally starting to be chipped away at.
You’re not alone. This game - the whole trilogy - resonated so freaking much with me. Hell, I have/had cats named after the characters (Vanille and Snow; Snow passed last year). The level of hate and lack of respect for people who enjoy this game is why I stay the hell away from the fandom.
I don't think auto-battle is really a problem. I finished the game a couple of times and i really like the battle system a lot. I actually think they made it worse in XIII-2.
Selecting commands manually is like starcraft korean level of skill given the amount of time, maybe not at the start but definitely later when you have access to many commands. I consider auto-battle a tool to streamline the fight. The real meat is in selecting the right paradigm shift at any given time to make the fight as efficient and fast as possible.
This is 100% true. At high level it's mostly impossible to actually select the right attacks in most situations without losing time. It should be noted that the Japanese version in fact never calls it "Auto" at all. The gameplay is about timing, planning and switching paradigms and reacting. It's far too fast to select individual attacks.
@@pilzi875What is it called in the Japanese version?
@@mbrillon765 追撃（ついげき / tsuigeki）translates to pursuit
@@pilzi875It's very possible actually to do it manually, and one thing to help that the game never tells you is if you press right on the Ability command, you can select "Repeat" which as the name imply automatically pick the chain of command you have previously use, which is incredibly usefull for repeating attack chain and even for buff as you can repeat the chain but change target to buff your party members one by one.
Gambits from FFXII was also the contentious feature in the same way. Probably FFXIII just expanded the idea of gambits to become the main way to interact with the combat system.
I think the combat system is the reason why I never finished this game back when it was released. It was just really new to me, and my fish brain did not get it then.
The acronym for "crystal points" has always been funny to me. Imagine wanting to gather as much of this resource as you can.
That's creepy, you're creepy
@@shivur5073 CP
No one except 4chan uses the abbreviation of "CP" for child porn. It's only become more popular lately because all those conspiracists insisting that everyone everywhere is always a groomer.
Ten seconds into the video, and I'm already amused. Man made us read an excerpt from the crystarium journal lore at the top of the video.
“My own personal Final Fantasy 7” hits me in the feels.
Just a correction on Steelguard: It has a ramping damage resistance which makes it really good against attacks that have multiple hits, like guns. The resistance resets when the character drops the stance, but with good timing against something that goes full auto you can get full damage immunity for the rest of the duration.
You could classify Vanille as the Ravager instead of another Saboteur because her every action, and inaction, unwillingly make things worse for everybody around her. She was an engine of destruction who chose to run away and/or hide things from others for fear of bringing further ruin upon them, as was her nature. This leaves Fang as the Saboteur, which is obvious from her purposeful and direct approach in dismantling the obstacles standing before Vanille and herself - infiltrating Cocoon and attacking Kujata at Euride Gorge, working with Raines to crush the Sanctum Fal'cie and destroy Dysley's status quo, becoming Ragnarok, etc. Vanille cannot be another Saboteur because she is not a willing participant in the misery she causes, whereas Fang consciously engages in it and eggs the others on in their rebellious campaign to veer off the path set before them by the machine gods and fight fate.
Even in Lightning Returns we see Vanille's efforts bringing calamity and Fang stopping at nothing to get in her way. Ravager and Saboteur.
My personal theory on the L'Cie 'focus' is that there simply isn't one. I think that what happens is that whatever fragmented vision they are shown is them seeing a glimpse of their own future and they are manipulated by the Fal'Cie into believing that this is instead a purpose given to them and that whether they become Cieth or turn to crystal or more to do with their own state of mind. If they think they have failed or have become doomed to fail then they'll become Cieth, if they think they have succeeded or reach a level of personal satisfaction then they turn to crystal. It is the Fal'Cie that muddy the water about what is actually happening in order to manipulate the L'Cie due to not wanting their human weapons to realise just how much free will they retain.
The reason that the 'focus' of a L'Cie is so fragmented and vague is that it is not actually what it is claimed to be. As an example - when Serah turned to crystal Snow claimed 1 purpose for her focus and Barthandy later claimed another but their is no proof to either and it is just as possible that it was simply a result of her mental state as her fiancee and sister both appeared together to save her when she was lost and alone. With the vagueness of everything about being a L'Cie it is relatively simple to confuse the truth and create a fiction about how it works.
Vanille and Fang are/were fated to become Ragnarok, it is/was in their future, but this does not mean they are fated to do what Barthandelus says they are. He is just doing his best to make them _think_ that they are.
This is my head canon at least... Probably influenced by the Legacy of Kain series where such manipulations are all aimed at making those with free will not realise that they have it.
This definitely isn't an impossibility and I like the way you are thinking with this. There are 2 times in the plot, though, that nay contradict this. The first is that Fang and Vanille turned into crystal after blowing a hole in Cocoon - by the way both of them act, as they are not bloodthirsty mass-murderers, I doubt they were extremely satisfied with themselves when their joint Ragnarok did that. The second is that the whole party turns to crystal after defeating Orphan, and the only ones who are really at peace with that result are Fang and Vanille. I doubt the rest if the party feels very happy at the thought that their 2 friends just sacrificed themselves to save them and all of Cocoon and Pulse.
That all said, I completely agree that free will and choice are major aspects of the story. Even if the focus puts a L'cie on a leash, it is a much longer leash than the Fal'cie let them believe. The fact that L'Cie are also given the power to summon Espers, which the Fal'Cie notably can't do, definitely leads me to believe that the power ceiling of a L'Cie is greater than most Fal, and they are actually afraid of letting their dogs realize how much freedom and power they truly have. At the very least, I don't think a Fal'cie can just snap its fingers and crystallize or Cieth a L'Cie, that's all on the L'Cie and their own brand growth/mental state.
@@EZog58 Thank you. One thing I forgot to mention in that comment was that the Fal'Cie clearly have _some_ influence over when a L'Cie reaches the end of their time, perhaps they can speed or slow it. And in the case of the subject becoming Crystal they seem to be able to restart the process again (unlike if they turned Cieth) but that their control over both these processes and the actions of the L'Cie in general is a lot weaker than they allow the humans to believe.
The Eidolons are directly linked to that concept, Cieth are people who have given up their humanity and become husks for one reason or another, but Fal'Cie do retain the ability to transform L'cie into Cieths at will, which is further explored in 13-2.
When the L'cie are about to give in, their Eidolon appears to challenge them and if they overcome they gain a new lease on life as a result.
Only raziel has free will in legacy of kain
About Hope and Vanille side cutscene, Vanille mentions it in the first chapter of the game. But you can completely miss what she meant if you don't watch the cutscene in Yaschas Massives.
I loved these games, and it’s a shame that they’re the only mainline final fantasy games unavailable on PlayStation store and PS4/5
They are on Steam at least if you have a decent pc
Earned a sub out of me my guy. Truly captivating stuff. I've long since been a staunch defender of Final Fantasy XIII. It's a great feeling to no longer be alone.
As a long time FF fan, people hate this game because
1. It's turn based but fast?
2. They have no media literacy.
3. They can't get over the fact that abilities and jobs while the same as they've always been, have diff names.
what a joke of a comment.
-people hate it because most of it plays itself not because it's fast.
-people criticise it by comparing it to the rest of the series, the only people who lack media literacy and the idiots that continue to say "ffx is linear and people don't complain" or some other equally stupid point.
-no one has ever given a shit about the ability/job names. not in this game nor in any FF. and most of them are the same as they've ever been anyway.
least restarted 13 defender right here.
@@AlexanderMartinez-kd7cz Most of the game plays by itself ? What about the auto-battle in recent remaster that makes you watch the game plays itself with your controller down ? What about FF12 ?
And more of that, the auto-battle critic is one of the dumbest thing ever. "Press X to win" is what you can do for every FF that comes before FF13, without exception. Every mobs can be beaten by just Attacking. No strategy, just brute force.
@@groudonvert7286Well said!
A few Bosses that have interesting mechanics that you didn't talk about :
- Aster Protoflorian is the classical changing weaknesses Boss. Except that Lightning doesn't have access to Blizzard and Hope doesn't have Bar-Thunder and Bar-Water.
- Dahaka can also change element resistances (and debuffs immunities) with its different storms... who also triggers Dahaka to use -ga spells (Aeroga can be considered as a game over nothing less xD ). This is canceled when Dahaka is staggered (down Dahaka has his own stats).
- The second fight against Barthandelus can be tricky if you're underdevelopped and/or play way too defensively. Barthandelus casts Doom after 20 minutes (Cid Raines, every Bart fights and Attacus cast Doom after 20 minutes, Vercingetorix and the first Orphan after 30 minutes). So you have a timelimit for all of this fights.
- Orphan 1 has 3 phases with different patterns and attacks. The most annoying one is Progenitorial Wrath who has 50% chance to one-shot the target. Orphan also has the most convulated AI in the game (for example, Progenitorial Wrath targets the Medic or Sentinel in the group during Consumate Light, the target is random during Extreme Opposite and most importantly doesn't care at all of the Provoke/Challenge). You're lucky to have never seen that, Orphan is one of the most unfair Final Boss in the series.
Havoc Skytank is the only enemy in the game who's long ranged. And since it's a long ranged battle, Lightning has a special way to use her Attack animation (though you can only use it if you manually select Attack) : Lightning will shoot at high speed with her gun. This is the fastest attack animation in the game by no small margin.
Someone else mentioned that. I had no idea because I just assumed it was impossible since Auto-battle never uses it. All the more reason to avoid auto-battle lol
@@Tetramorre Well I didn't know she had that animation before fighting Lightning in her DLC in 13-2 and I saw her using her gun for attacks and I wondered why I wasn't able to do that myself xD Later I learned it was in 13 (and 13-2) from the beginning.
Great analysis. The story/gameplay cohesion of ff13 seems really interesting. I'll definitely be rewatching this one, if only to try and figure out the whole fal'cie l'cie pulse cocoon thing.
This was my first Final Fantasy game! I stopped the first time I played it in chapter 1 because I didn’t understand what was going on at all, but went back to it and learned what was going on as I played and fell in love with this game. Love Lightning and am sad this game and its sequels have a negative reputation, I liked the whole trilogy and love the lore and backstory of this world, it feels very rich which i appreciate as someone who loves story
My uncle gave me this game because he liked it, and I let everyone tell me how bad it was until my boyfriend made me play through the entire trilogy. 13's story is AMAZING
What a great video dude. Watching the rest at work rn.
Just finished 😊
much appreciated for another hour plus long video essay on a subject I love, it makes getting art done so easy.
I still can’t believe that the voice of hope is also phineas’s voice😂
you just showed me i've been playing this game wrong for years great work!
I know FINAL FANTASY 13 isn't everyone's favorite, but its my FINAL FANTASY.
1:19:53 one thing I learned while on a replay of the game is that Lighting and even Fang do in fact have access to her physical attacks. she uses her gun while Fang throws her spear but for some reason the game defaults to magic
I loved this game from the very first moment and I couldnt understand that it gained so much missunderstanding, because it is so very well written. It's just sad, that people were expecting so much from this game and didnt gave it the chance to see how amazing it is. Like you said - it is straight forward because you are chased by the whole army of Cocoon. You don't have time for sight-seeing. It's only natural that you are able to "see through more than a tunnel", when you reach Pulse, where is no army behind you. And what you are finding on Pulse is so heartbreaking, when you hear Vanille and Fang talking about the blooming Oerba - that is nothing more than dusty void. No life. No Colors.
I also want to mentioned ... that Fang & Vanille forming a bridge between the two worlds is more than just a beautiful symbol. Fang and Vanille "hate" Cocoon, they didn't know that none of the people up there had any idea what the Fal'Cie were doing to Pulse. Stealing their supplies, relics, culture, ending lifes... through their journey with the others they reached each others hands - overcome their believes and gifted them a new future.
The worst part of FFXIII is... that there is XIII-2 and -3, where they killed all the personalities of the characters. No one is acting with sense/naturally anymore. I am glad that SE admitted to some point, that the sequels are just an alternate universe and that you can ignore them, if you want to. And yes... I really want to do that.
When describing each of the characters into their signature roles, I'd argue that Lightning is the RAV and Fang is the COM by the end.
Lightning definitely *starts* as a COM, but the story pushes her to using her strength and abilities to support others to grow. Her signature ability (that is RAV), Army of One, encapsulates that, making the stagger gauge raise incredibly fast and synergize incredibly well with a few of her weapon abilities. She ends up as a *decent* COM at the end, but not the best.
The best COM by the end is Fang. Her connection to Vanille is evident in her SAB ability to slow enemies, which is an incredibly useful ability, but she grows into the true lone wolf, attempting to turn on the party not once, but twice (even by the end of the game) to do what she feels needs to be done. Her signature attack (from COM), Highwind, is something she even uses against the party to instantly end that "conflict."
The rest of the roles are definitely spot on, tho I sincerely wish their signature abilities were made according to their role like Lightning, Vanille, and Fang.
Give Hope an instant, teamwide 100% ress/heal.
Snow can keep his Sovereign Fist, just give it the properties of instantly Taunting all enemies with 100% success rate so it's not left up to chance. His face so punchable, after all.
Then Sazh would absolutely love an ability that gave a unique party-wide buff that only he can give.
This way, everyone would have a legit reason to be the party lead in different scenarios.
Sazh's Cold Blood is a better version of Army of One. Cold Blood has a longer animation, does more hits (17 against 13) and the most important : Cold Blood can not miss.
@@groudonvert7286 But then you have to be controlling Sazh lategame to do the move, which is a mistake lol
@@GrandAngel8000 Controlling Sazh is a mistake ? Well you should tell this to the speedrun community, Sazh has been the team leader of pretty much every category for more than 10 years ^_^
More seriously, why Sazh is a great leader ?
1) He has access to every offensive buffs early (Haste being accessible after beating Havoc Skytank) including all En-Spells. Synergist is generally more effective when used by the leader.
2) His Blitz is OP. Huge and/or close enemies can take up to 7 bullets in one Blitz. Blitz also has a faster animation than 2 Attacks.
3) Cold Blood. With the help of Vigilance he can even stunlock Bosses outside of stagger for a while. In conjunction with the Sentinel Role, it's also the most reliable way in the game to kill Attacus (in 13 only, the Sentinel role ignores chain resistance... yes it's broken on some enemies).
4) Hyades Magnums, the strongest tier2 weapon in the game (and the reason why Sazh is used in every speedrun category). At full level, Hyades Magnum has 1140 in strength (normally tier2 weapons don't go much higher than 500). The Paper Tiger ability is a drawback, but since Sazh does stupid damage with it you can rely on a more defensive oriented team and only count on Sazh strength to deal damage.
5) Sazh does not need the secondary roles to be good. Fang and Lightning ask a huge investment in secondary roles to stand the comparison to what Sazh can offer just with his main roles.
@groudonvert7286 Thank you reminding me about his Blitz. I did forget how good his Blitz is.
I take back what I said.
After all these years, I feel incredibly validated personally about loving a game with almost everyone parroting how crazy I was for doing so. The work you did here is incredible and put into words what I couldn’t all those years ago; good or bad. Amazing video.
I cannot wait to get out of work and watch this! Your videos are great!
Duuuude, I absolutely LOVED this video essay! (Granted, I can't include myself in the "We" because after I finished XIII, I was preaching the gospel LOL). There's sooooo much good stuff you touched on! I'm so glad you purposely took time to discuss the combat, but specifically Sazh's storyline. Though I'm not a father, I'm a teacher and big brother/big cousin. On initial playthrough, I couldn't stand him. But after I played the game a second time (and to completion), I *really* appreciated Sazh's character arc. He's a 40yo widowed father who lost the one thing that kept him going. He bumbles through the beginning and, rightfully so, because he's trying to keep up with the teens/young adults (especially amidst their angst). Yet, he ends up developing a lot of love for the crew (it helped me appreciate the narrative decisions to have Sazh and Vanille being paired together).
In that lens, I really appreciated the decision to keep things linear, explore character progression through parity, and truly dive deep into healing strained relationships. Light learning how to be a big sister and to lean on others through Hope (aptly named), Hope needing guidance and working through his rightful resentment with Snow, who's so optimistic that he doesn't quite grasp the impact of his actions on others. (I'd also argue Hope was exploring his own sense of boyhood to manhood, especially with his relationships w/ Snow, his dad, and being granted Alexander). Sazh unintentionally filling his longing for Dahj and stability while with Vanille, while she's grappling with hiding the truth of her actions to someone who's in deep pain. You gave me more insight on Fang, as I wasn't the biggest fan of her initially.
The combat is chef's kiss. I'm a fighting game player, so the combat reminded me of a fighting game but also the stocks from Xenosaga 2. Once I made that correlation, I sunk HOURS into combat just to explore strategies. A buddy of mine worded it perfectly for when I first played XIII - "I see why you like it! It's a working man's Final Fantasy!" I laughed, but it's true. Each boot up, you get a good recap of what's happening in the game. And because I enjoy reading (and, like you, am not the biggest fan of unnecessary grinding), I would read through the Datalog, play after work, and never felt too lost in the story since it was straightforward. Plus, I loved X, so the linearity didn't bother me at all. In truth, I think it truly set the tone for the current games, particularly the FF7-Rs.
I can ramble all day about my love for XIII, but this video was so wonderful and truly, THANK YOU for all of your work on this! Truly looking forward to supporting your channel!
Glad you enjoyed it! Great comment too
This is just a great video! I loved how you chose to go with the flow of the story, because that's exactly one of the strongest elements of the game to me
Been loving FF XIII since day 1 and I'm just glad they never ruined the game by making direct sequels that crap on the characters or throw in dumb plot retcons via time travel. Nope. Not a single one... Square Enix would never destroy such a perfect ending for a money grab... Nope...
Seriously, Square Enix wouldn't bait and switch us on a sequel from having Lightning as a main character to giving us a Doctor Who plot... Nope.
Modern Square Enix does this to pretty much everything they make. No one with any major influence there cares even slightly about story integrity, and I'm not sure they'd understand what it even is if someone explained it to them.
@@BabyArms I really love Lightning Return's combat... Because it's basically a modified version of Mario & Luigi series (made by ex-Square employees that made Mario RPG)
But XIII-2 and LR legit feels like someone told them to **specifically** do everything to put down FF XIII story and characters. It's a real shame. The world of FF XIII is so amazing.
I like the sequels to 13 on their own but it's kinda sad how they kinda ruined a perfect ending to the first game. It's one of the best endings in all the games I've played so yeah. And man Serah and Noel are so bland as MCs 🙈 I still love the triology to bits
It's what hurt so much to me with the series TBH... FFXIII had great characterization and growth for everyone involved. The lack of lighthearted moments was exhausting, but it was still a good story.
The more I played XIII-2, the more the story felt like they took a checklist of all the forum/twitter complaints about the first game, and then they wrote several timelines(fanfics) to appease that mob, to give a "canon" ending that they would be okay with.
Then came XIII-3... It just didn't sit well with me. It felt like Lightning lost everything I loved about her in the original game, like she was turned into a puppet forced to do things (both in-story, and IRL with all the fashion company collabs Squeenix did.)
I personally always loved final fantasy XIII when it came out I played it start to finish both me and my brother used it as a competition to see who can always get further which was me because little brother always win. But over the years I fell more and more in love with the game I bought it when I still had my PS3 and I own two different copies of it I also bought it on my Xbox series s because I couldn't give it up I still play it till this day
The thing I most desire in my life, an FF13 remaster
You never mentioned ff13-2 or Lightning returns. Do you have an analysis of them pertaining to this story?
I haven’t finished either, so this video was deliberately just talking about the first game. If I play them some day I might make a video on them, only time will tell lol
Please keep it up man. Your vids are really good!
Pro tip: always pair a Ravager/Blaster with a Saboteur/Jammer. Debuffing spells slow the rate at which the stagger bar drops while Rav/Blasters kick it up and break through while they're debuffed and opened up. Third party members would be like Sazh handing out Haste and buffs at the beginning of battle so that your party can run circles around the enemies all yoked up.
About chapter 13, the 3 first Bosses have their own battle mechanics that are interesting to get a look at. Each one of them stops you to do something you normally do in the game, so you have to adapt to a new situation.
-Bandersnatch is immune to Physical Attacks
-Jabberwocky is immune to Magical Attacks
-Wladislaus is "immune" to stagger
-Flying Tiamat is immune to all debuffs
-Ground Tiamat Dispels every buffs on the party with every attack that hits.
To go a bit further, the game has ways to deal with each of this problems :
-Bandersnatch/Jabberwocky : The party full-ATB skills and Eidolons' Gestalt mode ignore physical/magical resistance/immunity.
-Wladislaus : since his level is not above 50, he's not immuned to Random Instant Chain
-Tiamat : a bit tricky but you can kill Tiamat before he lands... or if he does, you can stop it from attacking long enough to stagger it (that's a very hard and RNG thing to do).
i would add that Tiamat is also one of the few enemies in the game (and I think it's the only Boss) that can inflict Imperil. Tiamat can also inflict Slow (very annoying debuff).
My main problem with the game was not the story, not the combat system (even if i did not really like it. Everything is based on the shock bar. So you mainly put your characters in a raise shock bar configuration, and switch to the deal damage configuration, limiting the strategy. But the problem is that you do not choose your role 100%, because you have to level up you character and so, use useless roles just to get XP to unlock things for later).
No the main problem to me, was the characters. It was already not brilliant in FF12, to boring for a lot of them, but in FF13, no i cannot have a link with them.
We have the funny black character, the young girl in love with flowers and so on. It is a long time, i do not remember the game very well, but i remember that a lot of cutscenes were such a pain to watch !
It’s really funny is I was re-watching that video analysis last night
I'm sure this comment section will be full of healthy respect for everyones' opinions. As has always been the case for the many discussion of this game.
Great video also don’t know if anyone else has said it but in Chapter 7 for the final boss Lightning can actually use her gun as a physical attack. You just have to manually select it and it’s quicker and does way more damage
So ruin, ruin, ruin, attack, eh? Fascinating.
I know this is weird, but this video made me cry. This game has flaws, but this story - these characters - are something so special and I’m just … really glad there’s people out there who see that. Each of the characters resonated with me so much and it gets tiring hearing that they were terrible or had no character development (what?!), or that I’m not a “real Final Fantasy fan” - whatever tf that means - because this game is my favorite. Thank you for loving this game as much as I do.
Finally a good video about ff13. Thank you so much
Finished the video. Great criticism and praise where they are deserved
The best grinding spot fight is Shaolong Gui (who needs a very advanced party to stand a chance lol) : 120000/minute or so.
Shaolong Gui is also the strongest enemy in the game... and one of the most annoying one too when they decide to be a jerk.
Glad to see more people wake up
1:20:26 Lightning can use physical damage here! This is the only fight she uses her gun blade as just an actual gun! It’s pretty cool
I'm grinding the post game right now. The game definitely deserves a lot more credit than it gets.
I have a problem with the battles and the pacing tho. Even in Easy mode, fighting everything in your way demands you too much time, and there's waay too many.
The battle system is fun, but the way it works puts you kinda in spectator mode, selecting auto most of the time and just waiting for the bar to fill and watch your decision unfold.
I personally dont like the fact that you play more with the formations than the character actions directly.
Also, I like linearity, but this game's problem is not linearity, is how looong the corridors stretch. It's literally like if the game just forgot how to make small selft contained areas and just stretched everything for the sake of it. Mahabara tunnels before Taejin tower comes to mind. Unnecessarily long. Also Oerba. They couldnt open it and let you explore it. they had to force you into one single path with not even a single shortcut.
But whatever. Despite my grips, loved 'almost' every minute of it.
And incredible review too!
I don't get why people have a problem with the game dropping a term that creates questions. I think people have forgotten the difference between curiocity, and confusion. I don't think it's a bad thing to hear a term, and respond with what is that. Among other questions that may arise based on that.
Because the game dumps a lot of fantasy terminology on the players lap with the expectation that they'll read the datalogs to fully understand what is going on rather than take the time to properly explain them through the story and direct gameplay. Which wasn't really the norm for JRPGs when the game was released. Typically that kind of information is presented through inspected items/books or from talking to various NPCs. What explanations the main story does give for these terms is often just a quick overview or part of easily missed dialogue. It was a really sloppy element of the game's storytelling.
To me the ff13 trilogy suffers from
1) screaming you won’t kill orphan while killing orphan
2) the “choice” at the ending, also why didn’t Caius just end himself? Why drag everything out?
3) that awful stressful time mechanic.
I deeply loving the FFXIII story, and to see you done a game study and into the depth of the story deeper that I noticed I what I have missed.
In chapter 9 you say that there probably is not a thematic reason for Vanille and Fang having the Saboteur role, but I think there is: both of them are on Cocoon with the initial plan of sabotaging it.
Also, my most used party was also Light-Sazh-Vanille. They were my favourite three characters in the game. Snow and Hope were my least used party members, and they were also my least favourite party members in terms of character.
13's Stagger system is so much infinitely better than any other FF's.
Can you make a video for Final Fantasy 13 two as well?
I forgot how well Lightning and Hope's relationship is developed, and really I'm so happy to see the focus on it since Lightning became such a representative of "Character who talks a lot but doesn't have personality" for detractors online
A bland relationship is still a bland relationship... Not to mention the shitty ship. Trash.
My issue with 13 was that it was made during a time when Square was really insecure about their games. Anti jrpg sentiment was at its peak, and they made this game out of a fear of not being "mainstream."
The Havoc Skytank can be hit with the attack command with lighting. She just makes use of her gun blade by shooting, it is quite fast as well when she attacks in this way, but this particular instance seems to be the only situation when she fully utilizes the gun aspect of her gunblade. She still does shoot after a string of attack commands, but this is usually the last hit when she has 4 or more atb segments. Against targets that are not naturally airborne or launched that is.
Thank you so much for making this! I have always loved this game despite most of my friends making fun of it and me for it. I really appreciated how you characterized each character in lieu of the l’cie roles in the game. As a long standing FF fan, I always characterized them in light of the recurring classes within the series which I’d like to share since I think others will appreciate it too. I always saw Lightning as a Ninja. She has high offensive both physically and magically along with high speed (axis blade) and low defense (namely HP). I see Snow as the Knight. He wants to protect everyone and is clearly the best tank. I see Hope as the quintessential Black Mage. He learns all magic spells, has the highest magic stat, is emotional, and seeks to backstab and kill his teammate. Fang is the classic Dragoon. She is tough and strong, has the Jump ability, and even betrays the party (think FF4). Vanille is the Medic. She gets the healing staff, learns the strongest cure abilities way before Hope, and maintains a toxic positivity in her upbeat personality. And Sazh is the Bard. He buffs the party, is often the comic relief, and despite lacking the core stats that other classes have, he is totally worth having in the party almost always. I hope people find this interesting to contemplate like I do!
Haven’t watched the video yet; haven’t viewed this channel before, but at the time of this comment, it says that it was uploaded “13 Days Ago,” and I thought that was amazing 🤣
In my opinion I think FFXIII is a the perfect example of great ideas with poor execution. The issue isn't linearity, it's how it's handled. The characters and their writing aren't bad, it's how the characters are developed and their development is communicated to us throughout the story. The issue isn't the story it's how the story is told to us. My favorite Final Fantasy is X and my mixed feelings with FFXIII is that it is very similar in concept to FFX but is almost the exact opposite in execution. The main character is isekai'd into the world meaning he acts as a way to not only explore the world, but organically have people explain to you this world vs. every main character already knowing how this world works and you need to figure it out through context clues or the datalog. FFX is one of the most linear games in the series but that's never really held against it because within the linearity you get THE most fleshed out world from the mainline series outside of maybe FFXIV. FFXIII's problem is not just it's linearity, but it doesn't DO anything with that linearity besides battles and plot progression. You feel you're on rails and if you don't understand anything or simply want to know MORE about the world you just read a datalog. There's no way in game to learn about Titan, the massive fal'cie we see eating gigantic creatures outside of just reading about him in a game menu. FFX makes a literal straight line you walk through one of the most memorable landmarks in the game because you can interact with the people and things along the road to get the lore of the area. FFXIII lacks world building within it's gameplay loop with restricts almost every other aspect of the game in one way or another. It sucks because all the ingredients are there to makena fantastic game.
I’ve been a faithful believer in FFXIII since day one back in 2010.
The song that plays at 2:38:09 had me in tears when I first heard it smh. Dust to dust
A trilogy re-release with graphical and performance updates is my dream, maybe a chapter select for XIII-1
Xiii was the first game that I followed before release. I adored X, and to this day XII handled AI party members better than any RPG I’d ever played. From what I remember, the things that bothered me most were
1. Game over if party leader dies, so during tough fights I felt incentivized to play sentinel more often than I’d like. Between that and orphan having insta death attacks, it felt like a poor design decision.
2. The story ending didn’t make sense to me at the time, from what I recall, we destroyed orphan just like how the Fal’cie wanted us to do, and this whole game about fighting fate is resolved by…. Following the fate that’s decided for you. It just works out because…. Reasons…..
It’d be like if in FFX you kill sin forever by having yuna do the final summoning, but for some reason, yu yeavon doesn’t possess it and the cycle ends
I remember Raines being a difficult fight back when I beat it 15 years ago (I was 17 omg) but I didn't put much thought into it. I beat the whole game just spamming auto-battle and paradigm shifting.
The trilogy was fun! Lighting Returns is such a weird unique game but i love it!
FF13 is to the FF series what Fire Emblem Engage is to the Fire Emblem series, a culmination of many iterations of rpg mechanics and narrative elements taken to what their developers hoped would be their greatest form while throwing in a heaping pile of references to as many of their previous titles as possible while doing so. It addresses the chief complaints of it's near predecessors 10 (by becoming more fast paced) and 12 (by moving away from the gambit system that could eliminate player inputs entirely if done correctly) while setting the ground work for the systems that would be used in 7R.
As you said, it's a very good game, definitely a lot better than it's typically given credit for both on a mechanical and narrative level. Full of flaws, much like it's cast of characters, but profoundly earnest in its delivery. I would venture a guess that people who grew up with 13 as their intro to JRPGs have not been done any kind of disservice, and will probably find themselves just as video game literate as those who grew up with the earliest FF games.
lol thats absolute bullshit. ff13 takes a messy wet shit on all the fans who loved the series from the its beginning.
First FF game entry in mt childhood, and still is my favorite (well, it's actually 13-2)
The combat and paradigm system were all GREATNESS
Can you make a video for Final Fantasy 13-2 as well? And lightning returns? :)
No plans at the current moment, but that could change in the future if I finish the latter two games and have enough to say about them
@@Tetramorre cool :)
Regarding cut and keep. My personal opinion is that any game that uses hidden statistics/system is fairly criticized for any case in which a player misunderstands how to use that hidden system. Especially in the case that the game expects a player to somehow know the system and use it.
Cut and keep is purely incidental. At no point does the game expect you to actively use it, it mostly just affects the flow of battle when staggers happen, which doesn’t require the player to know anything about cut and keep, just that staggers mean easily interrupting attacks, something that’s pretty easy to see and learn on your own.
True. When I never remembered anything about interrupting attacks except by stagger. Makes me curious as to how they landes on those values specifically. Since stagger has been a cornerstone of neaely every FF since.
Note that the second and third Barthandelus fight and the first Orphan fight can't be interrupted in any way during stagger (Orphan can be Stagger canceled though). The first Barthandelus can be interrupted during stagger, thanks to that it's possible to kill Barthandelus before he uses Destrudo.
Note that Orphan 2 has no attack during stagger, the dark spell is casted by an invisible enemy.
It was an amazing analysis, keep up the good work, (no pressure, but would love to see xiii-2 and lightning returns analysis)
One thing the game doesn't teach you and you'll just have to notice it while playing, is that debuff spells have a much higher chance of sticking to targets the higher their stagger percentage is, especially if they're broken/staggered. Which is why Ravagers/Blasters and Saboteurs/Jammers are a match made in heaven. Vanille's Marlboro wand (evolves from a Belladonna wand) is one of the best weapons in the game with its unique properties for higher chances of debuffs sticking so that you waste less time coughing and farting on enemies.
What is that Tim Roger’s clip from?
Video sources are in the desc, but that one is from his Action Button review of FF7R, toward the beginning.
Edit: Apparently that one slipped through the cracks, but it’s in there now lol
*I* love it, lmao. You're not alone
well damn i wasn't expecting this
Ive been grinding out this video off and on with my dtive to and from work, and i loved it. Ive always been a fan of the 13 trilogy, got the platinum on all 3. I long ago stopped telling people its not as bad as people say, but its not worth it. If someone else doesnt like it, thats cool. I'll keep enjoying it in my small bubble.
I've been replaying ff13 recently because I never did the post game and I wanted to check it out. I've got a lot more respect for it now then I did on release. The character arcs aren't mind blowing but they are pretty good. And understanding more about paradigms and the ATB refresh mechanic has really helped the battle gameplay feel more fluid like it does in 13 - 2 and 13 - 3
I’ve played and beaten every numbered Final Fantasy. I really enjoyed 13 and it is in my Top 5, possibly Top 3. Great video.
I personaly dont compare FF13 with any other FF game.
I compare it to a nightmare
Any other FF game i played, i had a smile on my face, this one made me almost cry and beg for it to end.
Now i watched 10 min of this video and i think thats enough.
I remember this game has Mecha Pope the best FF villain.