Final Fantasy 13 True Cast

[Fleck]

Wait a minute! Sazh is BLACK???

[Bob]

I know, right!?

[agent0042]

This was supposed to be a comment on the True Cast, right? I'll assume that it was and post some thoughts on that. (The appropriate moving can be done later based on whether I'm right or wrong.)

Anyways, I thought this True Cast was pretty much spot-on. I agree that Lightning really is the main party leader / driving force, when it comes to it. She really is in the forefront, so it's no surprise that she's the character that's featured on the artwork, nor that the planned sequel game is slated to feature her. I'll just say one other thing - Sazh may be Secondary Cast, but I really enjoyed his character nevertheless. The story could have probably gone along okay without him, but I don't think I would have enjoyed the game quite as much if he hadn't been there.

[Fleck]

Ah, crap. Yeah, it was supposed to be in True Cast. I'm still not used to all this "specific categories" nonsense. This is why all the parenting manuals say that you can't be lax all the time and then suddenly start enforcing rules. You've spoiled us, Bob, and now we're running around without our pants and shoving our topics where they don't belong. It's your fault, Bob! Your fault!!

[Bob]

Agent: Agreed about Sazh. He's a great addition to the game, he just could've been removed.

Fleck: Don't worry! I'll take the case! I'll move this to True Cast faster than you can say....something kinda long but not really!

[countlieberkuhn]

I have to say I agree with your choices here. Vanille is the only iffy one, but I still agree nevertheless. She's ALMOST secondary cast, but without her Sazh wouldn't be involved at all. In fact, Sazh's own little plot happens entirely because of Vanille, and my favourite part of the whole game (and one of my favourite FF moments ever) is down to Vanille and Sazh. Not only that, Vanille is important for all the Ragnarok-related stuff, even if it's Fang that ultimately becomes Ragnarok and saves the world, with Vanille chiming in at the last moment to help build a crystal pillar to save everyone, if memory serves correctly. It was all a bit of a deus-ex machina ending, but she helped make it happen.

The game could almost have worked without Vanille as a main character and had Fang do all the Ragnarok stuff alone and fight for an NPC in the same way Snow fights for Serah and Sazh for Dajh, but the aforementioned scene which Sazh's whole plot built up to just wouldn't have worked if Fang were in Vanille's place. The reason it works is because they're both really nice, well-meaning characters, and through a cruel twist of fate Vanille ended up being responsible for taking away the only thing Sazh fought for. You feel sorry for both of them - Sazh for losing his son, and Vanille for hurting someone she cared about through no real fault of her own. If it were Fang, she wouldn't really have cared too much about Sazh's loss because she's single-mindedly focused on her mission, and expects such collateral damage to happen. You'd have wanted Sazh to kill her, which wasn't the case with Vanille, as irritating as she can be

It's a shame the game itself was so flawed, because the characters, their motivations and interactions were probably some of the best in FF's history. I may have a dislike for Lightning and Hope, but they're still good characters. Plus, they add additional weight to Snow's massive strength of character, since he's able to win them over eventually, despite them originally finding common ground over their hatred for him.

[Bob]

Yeah, FF13 is almost exclusively a character game. The plot is kinda superficial and crazy with a lot of "umm, just walk through this junkyard I guess" types of locations, but it's all about the journey of the characters. It shows most of them grow and such, which is hardly a bad dynamic. I just wish there was something, ANYTHING to make me care about the plot itself.

[Fleck]

There, now I fixed the thread title and NO ONE WILL KNOW MY MISTAKE! Unless they read the previous posts...

Apr 10, 2011 19:17:37 GMT -8 countlieberkuhn said:

I may have a dislike for Lightning and Hope, but blah blah blah I'm British.

I like Lightning. I think she was justified for all her feelings and actions throughout the game. I mean, if my theoretical sister brought home some blond, bandanna-wearing doofus who likes to punch things, I'd be fairly upset too. Honestly, doesn't Snow just look like the kind of guy who calls everyone "bro" and plays Xbox till his fingers bleed? I'd punch him too. Also I've always been more interested in anti-social characters than other characters. So Lightning is wins all around for me.

[countlieberkuhn]

Yeah. If anything, it's almost the opposite of FF12, which actually had a pretty interesting plot with lots of political intrigue and such, but at least half the main characters were not only superficial to the plot, but contributed nothing as a character either. Vaan and Penelo could be forgiven for their lack of plot involvement if they in some way helped shape the people around them and make them into better people, but it's just not the case. Ashe and Basch were already good people with admirable goals, and the same goes for Balthier. He gets involved with the others for his own reasons, but he was never a bad person to begin with, he just always marched to his own tune in a way that is totally endearing.

Somewhere there's that happy middle ground that they managed to achieve in games 6-10, which they seemed to have missed the mark on for all the subsequent games.

FF13 is probably closest to FFX of all the games in the series, since it's a character-driven story. However, the reason FFX worked so much better is because FFX's plot was so simple. It's not my favourite FF plot (FF7, FF6, and sooooorta FF9 and FF12 I prefer from a pure plot standpoint), but the simplicity means that there's a lot more room to explore the characters themselves, who are pretty much impossible to beat as a group.


Fleck: I can sort of see where you're coming from. I might have actually sympathised with Lightning a bit had the game introduced Snow in this way, giving a first impression of a good-for-nothing, bad influence boyfriend... but it doesn't. Before we see that scene, we've already seen plenty of heroics, selfless acts, leadership qualities and a genuine love for Serah from Snow. We already know he's this great guy whose only flaws are really that he gets too emotionally attached, and tends to act on impulse which can often end up with things going horribly wrong, but always for the right reasons. As such, Lightning just comes off as bitchy as antagonising. It'd have been much better from a story point of view to have not started the game in the middle of the second act, so we could originally view Snow with the same dislike as Lightning, and then as Snow proves himself to be a great person time and again, our initial opinion of him would change along with Lightning's.

[Fleck]

Yeah, you're probably right. But then, FF13 had a lot of issues with the order in which things happen. I still don't think that starting the game right in the middle of a battle you don't understand is a good way to kick things off. That kind of intro works in some instances, but only if the beginning is very short, like the opening of FF6 or FF7. You don't know what's happening at first in either of those games, but the confusion doesn't last long and the games settle into exposition immediately thereafter.

But in 13, the opening battle literally lasts hours and involves almost the entire main cast before it finally settles down and starts explaining itself. If the story were structured differently, I think I'd enjoy the first few hours of the game more than I did. Furthermore, it'd be easier to side with Hope's revenge campaign if we thought Snow was a jerk too. In fact, everything makes more sense that way. Damn it, Square Enix, what were you thinking?

In a side note, I sided with Lightning pretty much right away, so despite seeing Snow's heroics, I assumed that Lightning knew more about Snow than we did, so I felt that he probably deserved a good fist to the face. Turns out he probably didn't. Oh well. I liked that scene anyway.

I think I might go and watch the cutscenes on Youtube, so that I can watch the plot and see if my opinion has changed without the burden of, you know, owning the game or playing all the way through it again.

[Bob]

Well I may tell you what I think of that intro soon, too, since I'm getting a (wait for it) PLAYSTATION 3! Also FF13! I'll tell you if that's woo-worthy in about a week. I'll possibly get the PS3 before then, but I don't really have time to play this week anyway. But with next week being spring break (Spring Break, woo!), I'll likely be playin' again soon! THIS time on PS3 instead of XBox360, so now I can compare systems!

[countlieberkuhn]

Woo! You should be able to find a crapton of great games that are super cheap pre-owned now as well, which is a nice thing about getting a console after its been out a few years. Including FF13!

[agent0042]

I'll just say now that I recommend Eternal Sonata, though I'm hoping to get around to typing up an actual review within the next day or two.

[Dale]

Apr 10, 2011 12:52:55 GMT -8 Fleck said:

Wait a minute! Sazh is BLACK???

That . . . wasn't obvious? I mean, since the initial cast release, I could see he was. He's even voiced by a black dude.

[Fleck]

He's even VOICED by a black dude?? Holy shit, what else have I missed???