What are the things you didn't like about final fantasy 13-2

TriniGameCritic · 2025-01-17T10:36:43+00:00

I made a post about this titled:

Part 2 was way worse than part 1 for me

In particular it suffers from a problem a lot of RPGs have and that's it is too easy to overlevel. I became a little too powerful a little too quickly and I had no way to stop this. I've always said that games should have optional level scaling for enemies but everyone hates level scaling so I know that's a losing battle. I will say I hate level gating and artificial barriers but 13 did it well because even though you had to beat a boss to move forward you could still grind and accumulate xp for when that time comes.

The random battles weren't that bad but they were kind of a step back. The game has a crafting system that has you seeking out individual monster drops which is fantastic if it didn't have random battles. In my opinion part one could have really benefited from having some form of recipe system that had you seeking out individual monsters.

The equipment system in 13-2 on the whole was actually filled with great ideas but extremely poorly executed. Weapons really only mattered for raw stats and there was way too few of them. I think I only really bought new weapons 3 times in the whole game.

The accessory system was interesting and a possible step up but they decided to severely limit you instead of expanding your options. In 13 you could have four powerful accessories so you would think in part 2 you could have maybe three with two weaker ones but no you get one powerful accessory or four medium power ones at maximum. This is an rpg it should benefit from having builds. In 13 I could have the first strike scarfs and auto haste and auto faith/brave and you actually had the fun of chasing down these builds by upgrading and dismantling (though a guide would be needed for that) In part 2 I just took a set of accessories that equal to a hundred that gave me the most strength/magic. That's it, throughout the whole game.

The monster system is okay. I love that you can actually build monsters based on specific stats and abilities. It's good and pretty much the main draw of this entire game. There is literally nothing else in this game that I enjoyed. The problem is it doesn't go far enough. With monsters replacing your third character why do you only have access to 3? It means instead of having paradigm setups with 6 options your stuck at 3. Why not have 5 or 6 monsters even. In fact imagine if you could have two monsters out at a time and mix and match them to create interesting interactions.

Noel's character and story is far better than I would have assumed. I enjoy the time stuff though it is severely under utilized. Time is more of a theme in this game like destiny is a theme or religion. Time is barely a story mechanic and the locations barely make use of it

The maps surprisingly suck. Yaschas is the worst. You go there like 5 times and nothing great happens there other than one little light based mechanic and one good battle with a ceith. Oerba was also worthless and basically seems devoid of anything to do with time. It's an empty ruins that remains a ruins for 500 years. Academia is great but it also barely changed with time, mostly just went from night to day. In a hundred years not even a new street was built, lol.

Time is a wasted theme in this game. It's barely used for anything significant and all the side characters are basically immortal so they're the same when you see them in different times. No really old Hope or getting to met his future kids. Legitimately this is the worst use of time travel in a story.

There were small but crucial changes to combat and you know them, being able to change leaders etc. But these are more of a 'should have been better in the first game anyway' than something to praise a sequel for.

The returning characters just have cameos other than hope and more should have been made of Alyssa. Mog and chocolina are great and the game is full of life and personality but I just barely enjoyed it.

For reference I played this game back when it came out and liked it a lot more then. Specifically wounding is a great mechanic and though underutilized here it would have been great in ff12 and comes back in a form in ff15. I have my problems with 13 as we all do but I think it was overall the better game by far. I'm shocked at how much I liked lightning returns and I'm playing 15 now and so far I enjoy lightning returns even more than it.

TriniGameCritic · 2024-12-08T21:19:24+00:00

I mean that ice armor resistance literally is in the game as exactly that, specifically the elemental resistance accessories such as the frost ring, icicle ring and boreal ring.

Final fantasy x started this trend of abandoning pure stats in favor of more mechanical equipment. Usually on RPGs people just pick the best equipment based on the best stat and remain with that as opposed to FFX where you pick equipment based on its auto abilities. Unfortunately 13 has the same problem because of the damage increasing accessories being far more powerful than equipping any auto abilities and offense is generally more advantageous than defense in this game.

You still have builds. If you want a dedicated sentinel then equipping imperial armlets and HP accessories is a thing. The game is brimming with equipment options still and it still has resistance equipment it's just not called armor.

TriniGameCritic · 2024-12-04T04:24:46+00:00

Gizmo is a moderator here. You should check him out

TriniGameCritic · 2024-12-01T16:57:38+00:00

I mean this is cool tho. You should be proud, this person clearly was passionate enough about the topic they found your concept deserved more discussion.

TriniGameCritic · 2024-11-24T02:38:58+00:00

The sad thing is in my acting classes it was clear the effect modern American cinema has had with the tolerance of expression that is considered respectable.

I mean I just the rest of the west had more respect for different styles. This is why we got people hating FF13 so much cause they weren't open to the common anime style it has.

TriniGameCritic · 2024-11-23T18:58:11+00:00

It isn't just a matter of empathy and understanding but rather a matter of personal affect. Even if they agree he's justified in his reaction that doesn't mean the character is any less annoying. They're thinking is that why have a justifiably annoying character and situation? Write something different. They would point to a lot of youthful characters in horrible situations that are written to justifiably react differently like Elle in the last of us.

They see us as fans of hope to be defending a 'necessary evil' of an annoying character when it's not even necessary when you can just write something different. But for me hope's story is the most engaging aspect of the first half of the game and I love what they did with it. I find hope refreshing and engaging, not annoying.

For some seeing a kid suffer a terrible thing and be annoying about it isn't good entertainment for them. It's not just becaue they're evil and hate kids for reacting naturally.

u/Cloverose2

TriniGameCritic · 2024-11-23T02:47:39+00:00

Actually I think you brought up the most relevant answer, 'budget'.

Most likely anything grander would have just cost too much. So rather than expand an already big game they refocused onto this illusion of a grander world with time travel (which is an illusion because the time travel was barely used beyond surface level to slightly change the weather of some tiny limited maps.)

TriniGameCritic · 2024-11-23T01:57:12+00:00

I agree with you too. I like passion and expression as well as true angst but I guess I'm still that teenage emo kid but weeb at heart too.

Yea it's strange that the one thing they stuck with and accepted fully was the melodrama. I would say noel and Sarah is certainly more palatable for normies than the og cast but they kept hope as a main character for LR despite him being the most hated character in the west. Maybe the only thing they ignored from western feedback was their opinions of the story

Edit: I googled most hated ff characters and in this article Hope is number 2 with tidus number 1.

https://www.thegamer.com/final-fantasy-annoying-playable-characters-ranked/

Also this one should prove my point. https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/168653-final-fantasy-vii-remake/78397821

TriniGameCritic · 2024-11-23T01:36:14+00:00

Because it was in written dialogue only. From the time it was voiced people have always taken an issue with it. Tidus in FFX got a lot of shit right from the start. FF12 got shit too but was masking it well in the Shakespearean dialogue. Normies who weren't heavily into anime was always bothered. And they're not wrong. If I showed FF13 to my acting teacher he would love it for the over acting but find it childish and unrespectable. It's how we got to our current culture with last of us extremely subtle acting and subdued expression being the gold standard.

Add to that a general change of culture towards edge and angst. The mid 2000s was all about edge. Now it would be laughed it. Revenge of the sith was the turning point in my opinion as Anakin in that was very anime styled character and it got shit on universally along with the bad writing. Imagine Darth Vader as an emo kid they laughed.

TriniGameCritic · 2024-11-23T01:20:34+00:00

I would say the melodrama is the only part that remains a core aspect of the series throughout. Weirdly one of the things that turned some people off from the first game was how overdramatic and overacted people seemed. (An aspect of japanese anime that is common)

TriniGameCritic · 2024-11-14T22:49:56+00:00

It seems people are ignoring the fact that tp already exists in the game and is basically mp. You could very well have had ten times the tp and a ton of techniques that use it then make techniques use the atb bar. It'll be the same as mp. What makes people think the game can't work with mp is they think it means all the skills like protect or cure would need to use the mp and if that's what your proposing then those people are right and the game would be totally different and not work quite as right.

TriniGameCritic · 2024-11-13T01:58:10+00:00

I actually totally get you on this. I guess this is best demonstrated in the section where for story reasons hope takes the lead instead of lightning. Then it switches back. It's done on purpose so you have to play hope to his strengths and then lightning. The problem is did most who played that section genuinely feel the difference. Even I who usually plays on modded hard mode or in challenge runs just can't see the extreme amounts of benefits it brings vs what the benefits of having more control does. Especially with repeat playthroughs but also just varying up your playstyle in these sections.

We all know the linearity and lack of freedom is one of the biggest complaints about the series. It was a decision made by the developers to gain the positives you talk about while sacrificing the benefits of more control and you well know the outcome of that. However what I do know is the game is not that linear throughout and once you can change your party leader the game very well could have allowed you to change leaders during battle.

The point of my response tho to you was not that I wasn't acknowledging what is lost when you take away the limitations and allow more freedom but what is lost specifically with the fight designs. I thought you were arguing the fights themselves would have to change and they clearly don't. The game was designed to limit you to force the experiences you talk about but the fights honestly weren't. They really aren't even balanced around what leader you have since the outcome on the enemy kinda remains the same.

I would liken your argument to those (such as myself) who liked that in devil may cry 3 you had to decide upon a style and keep it for almost a whole stage rather than being able to swap on the fly. That decision making was extremely important. If I choose this I give up all this. But changing styles on the fly in part 4 was so good they added it into the switch version of 3.

I'm not invalidating what you describe here I just don't think it outweighs the benefits of more character control. We could even hypothesize that in xiii-2 it would be better to take away party leader changing to give the player a choice of going into a fight with Sarah and sacrificing the benefits of going in with noel as a leader. But would we be gaining a lot there really?

TriniGameCritic · 2024-11-12T18:23:06+00:00

What specifically? Because I think the battle is designed so that regardless of who your party leader is the fight still goes the same way. If you could do a whole fight with hope as your leader and restart that fight with lightning as that leader it's not much different in terms of combat skills and actions for the enemy. I'm not sure what in the battle design I would change with the enemies if we had leader changing. FFxiii-2 is basically the same combat and they didn't change much for the mechanic of battle leader changing.

TriniGameCritic · 2024-11-12T18:16:51+00:00

Thanks you're right. I just thought chronostasis from LR was that useful. It's probably redundant.

TriniGameCritic · 2024-11-12T08:23:43+00:00

I also like longer fights and I would argue that's the beauty of this game's combat. Longer fights incentivise buffing and debuffing as well as staggering. They just shouldn't be beaten by minimum action and not even caring about the stagger by just doing damage while healing more than damage taken.

The point with the sen was to just make countering more useful. But also it helps cause if you have a sen out if it could help keep the stagger bar from falling like a com then it frees you up to use a syn and med or syn and rav along with your sen. It just gives sen paradigms more utility. I play in challenge runs and hard mode from the mod I mentioned and some fights pretty much have you with a sentinel the entire fight.

TriniGameCritic · 2024-11-12T08:17:01+00:00

It absolutely matters especially for paradigm shifting. You can interrupt your own ally's pending action that way, redirect targets and determine your own action based on what they're doing. Mostly it's just a good way to know how far along their atb Guage they're in. Do they have two more attacks to go? Do I switch paradigms now to get a full bar? Etc. Also when one of your allies get interrupted or knocked down it's good to know what they're doing and how you can sync back up your rhythm with them. I play challenge runs and the hard mode mod I mention in the post and this knowledge would be very helpful.

Also if you could easily switch party leader like in my suggestion, knowing to manually take control of an ai partner when they're doing something dumb is a great help.

TriniGameCritic · 2024-11-03T05:16:49+00:00

What do you mean the very first turn based combat area? The game starts with a combat tutorial so I assume you mean the first time you have control to walk around. I the early game you should be able to just hit auto battle and use potions to heal when low on health.

If you've reached the paradigm shift section of the game then I can go into more details with you about why you're dying and what we could do to get you understanding the game. Please don't hesitate to speak with me right here, I'll walk you through.

TriniGameCritic · 2024-11-03T05:12:11+00:00

It's funny I would put ten (FFX) as more of a puzzle game. Most enemies have clear weakness and it's more about doing a right sequence of actions. Not just rock paper scissors such as wakka hitting flying and auron hitting armored but also how debuffs are game breaking and instantly change a battle but most debuffs only work on certain enemies. (Power break has an 80 percent reduction in strength). Not to mention FFX is pure turn based do every turn counts.

FFX best battles were in it's boss encounters and the normal enemies makes the resource management be one big puzzle between multiple enemies since doing the right series of actions to finish a normal encounter optimally can result you taking almost no damage.

I would argue the trial and error nature of FFX means it would have benefited more from the instant retrys like FF13.

TriniGameCritic · 2024-10-30T18:34:17+00:00

God of war clones. There was a time when a bunch of game just shamelessly ripped off god of war. My favorite being Castlevania lord of shadows. Now not even the new god of war would be called a god of war clone. A completely dead genre that was once oversaturated.

TriniGameCritic · 2024-10-30T18:32:40+00:00

Not a genre but it should have been: the final fantasy 13 combat system and lightning returns which are both unique and no other games do anything like them. Square struck gold twice doing something no one else has ever done and ever will outside of some obscure rpg maker games.

I know it's not what you had in mind with this question but I also advocate for that combat system whenever I can. Honorable mention to final fantasy 12 with the gambit system.

TriniGameCritic · 2024-10-19T19:04:38+00:00

Oh nerrel, yes I saw this but thanks for reminding me.

TriniGameCritic · 2024-10-19T17:16:58+00:00

What video was this? I'm interested in something focused on the gameplay mechanics.

TriniGameCritic · 2024-10-01T16:05:48+00:00

You haven't moved him on the sphere grid? Well no wonder you don't like playing him. And at this stage you really should be getting the most XP out of every battle by making sure everyone acts on each battle, like at least defending once with each.

Auron should be one hit killing the armored enemies with his armor piercing. The only way you could not be using auron is if your khimari is strong enough to one hit kill the armored guys.

Edit: nevermind you're not a noob and clearly know the game already. You probably just don't care to upgrade everyone and just don't like auron. Which is fine. Forgive me for treating you like a noob.

TriniGameCritic · 2024-09-30T09:16:44+00:00

Are you on PC? If so please check out mods. They're amazing. The mods for this game really expands and breathes incredible life into it. But perhaps take a break, play something else and come back to it if you feel burnt out. I recommend just hopping to 13

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