Square Soft > Square Enix: Why Final Fantasy 13 Didn’t Stack up.
I will be the first to admit I had Fun Playing Final Fantasy 13…Well after I got Past The first 15 hours. Everyone knows the start of the game was just way to linear. The game has been beat to death because of that. Still The Game was Real fun and kept me interested even after I had beaten it. With Side Missions to keep me busy for over 100 hours of Game play. So Yes I was a Fan of the game and I felt it was better then a lot of the games that have come out in the last few years. But The Reason The Game gets shit on by most people is because even though its better then 90% of the games on the market, its not better or equal to any other final fantasy POINT BLANK! I feel like when other final fantasy’s games came out they had done something no other game had done before and really just impressed you. You could say Final Fantasy did it first and Nothing about Final Fantasy 13 made me say this. Let me Give some Examples
Final Fantasy II (IV in Japan) and III (VI in Japan)
When these games came out video gaming was still new to most of the world. Most games either involved walking straight and beating up whoever crossed your path, or going through a bunch of mazes or was just a Real Bad Sports Game Or Was a 2d fighting game. These games had huge cities and world maps to explore. Other games had done this before but mostly games Made by Square Soft. So the company that made Final fantasy is the same company that made this famous. Square Soft was Made Famous for making games no longer linear. For Some Reason I feel like they did the opposite recently. But The Real Thing I Felt these two games added to the gaming industry was just an amazing story! Having a Deep story was rather new to gaming and If I might say Final Fantasy VI might have had one of the best stories in gaming history! Which is saying a lot because it was really before Elaborate Stories were a main focus in games.
Final Fantasy VII
Where Do I start? Maybe by saying in my opinion this is the greatest game of all time! You Can look back at this game and say the graphics sucked, but when this game came out it was nothing but revolutionary. It was Really The First Huge Open World For Playstation and set the bar pretty high. Those Graphic mixed with an open world had never been seen before. They Didn’t Stop There You could interact with The Highwind which was an airship you could fly and land all over the World Map. You Could Ride Chocobos all over the world map and Some even crossed Mountains and oceans. You Had a submarine that could float around the surface or go underwater to another world. The Game really set a standard. Another Thing which was new to gaming was The Cut Scenes Final Fantasy 7 had. At The Time It blew many gamers away because we had never seen it before. Square Soft (no Not Square Enix) was really thinking outside of the box. Add All That in With With a Great Story with an even better cast and you had the greatest game of all time! They Really Made The Fans Love The “BAD GUY” in this game! Sephiroth was just an Epic Enemy! The story was so deep and there where multiple plot twists. If you was playing the game for the first time you didn’t know if Cloud was real or an experiment! Sephiroth mind fucked the shit out of cloud! The Game Slowly adding the back story of Zack helped twist things up too. Plus The Cast was full of bad asses! The Game was Master Piece!
Final Fantasy VIII and IX
The Two other Final Fantasy Games that came out for PS1 really followed in the same path as Final Fantasy 7 and it was a great formula to follow! They added in Improved graphics, Some new card games and side quests to keep you interested! These Games didn’t have to be revolutionary because there predecessor had already set the bar so high for PS1 the only thing you could add in was little improvements and these where the only games that could handle that formula!
Final Fantasy X
This Game added Voice Actors to the franchise and The Best Cut Scene quality any game had seen up to this point! The Story in This Game was The Best Since FF7. There was tons of fun new stuff to do and the graphics and size of this game where the biggest and best PS2 had seen so far. Blitz ball was new you really had never had a sports game in an RPG before and I had tons of fun playing that!
Final Fantasy X-2
Ummm it was the first direct sequel with an all female cast? I didn’t hate it but I did not love it!
Final Fantasy XII
This has to be one of the most underrated games of all time! When This Game came out it had the biggest most beautiful open world gaming had ever seen. I don’t think anything has touched it until Skyrim came out. This game really used the PS2 to its max. I don’t think any other game used the system quite as perfectly as this game did. Add in a pretty good story and Over 100 hours of gameplay and this game was awesome! There was so many side missions you couldn’t put the controller down! The Battle system was also great with the monsters being right on the screen for you to fight or run from!
Back to The Topic at Hand
You really can look back at all those games and remember exactly what made them original when they came out and I really don’t have anything for Final Fantasy XIII. I mean the graphics are by far the best the franchise had ever seen but I would of given up on a little bit of graphics for a less linear game! I mean after Final Fantasy 12 you had such high hopes for what Square Enix Could do and it was kind of a let down. I mean if there was just like 6 or 7 maps like the archylte steppe that connected by load screens and had a few cities you could go to in each it would of been so much better of a game. I also hate the fact there aren’t really any cities or houses you can interact with. Like I said I enjoyed playing the game, I enjoyed story, I enjoyed the side missions. All of the above! But compared to other final fantasy’s This game lacks in comparison. Even with all that being said a bad final fantasy is better then most other games on the market. I still picked up the controller and couldn’t put it down until 100 hours later. I cannot say that with many other games that have come out recently. Also you can add in the fact they had to delete 40 hours of game so it could come out for XBOX and to be fair they cut the same amount from the ps3 version
Final Fantasy XIII-2
I really loved this game! There wasn’t to much dialogue and it wasn’t as long as other final fantasy games but it was a spin off so I will let that slide. I put in at least 80 hours of game play in this game in a matter of 2 weeks. So The Game got me hooked!! The Story really wasn’t as bad as all the reviews said. I mean yeah you had to really complete all the side quests and paradox worlds to figure out what the hell was going on. But even with that being said the game was just fun!! They really hooked you on trying to catch every monster and trying to max them out and farming monsters. Add in trying to get every fragment and you really became a perfectionist trying to do everything. I never got to a point where I said oh this game is boring let me shut it off. Which During Final Fantasy XIII I said that multiple times in the first 15 hours but after that I was hooked. I wish the game was longer and we got a clear ending but I feel like Square enix put this game out just to show the improvements in gameplay and that they fixed a lot of the things they messed up on in Final Fantasy XIII. Basically Showing everybody they know they fucked up and are fixing everything for the next full installment of a game coming out! P.S I also enjoyed the fact you decided where you wanted to go in this game. you didn’t get forced into going straight through the game. You can really back track whenever you want. I like being able to decide where I can level up my party cause as you know different monsters drop different items! Easy Access to each map is Key!
Final Fantasy XIII Versus
Talk about a game lost in transition. I thought this game was suppose to come out a year after XIII? When both of these games where announced in like 2007 everyone I mean everyone looked forward to Versus over XIII. It just looked like the way cooler and darker game. So FFXIII came out….a year later nothing! Then a year after that we get a direct sequel to FFXIII and now we just want to know where the fuck Versus is? I do Believe XIII-2 was released first to show all the improvements they have made so you know Versus is gonna be a real in depth game! I hope The Reason they are taking so is cause they are really trying to make this game perfect! I hope they are working hard on getting an open world map done and etc! Hopefully This is a Square Soft caliber title!
Square Soft Over Square Enix For Life! Square Soft > Square Enix
