Entries tagged with final fantasy xiii

Crossposts: http://zen-monk.livejournal.com/47581.html

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I also play XIII-2

The Vile Peaks in XIII-2 reminded me that I had shipped Lightning and Sazh pretty astutely until the XIII game revealed how much less cutscenes and interaction they actually have together 8'D.

Screw it, Lightning/Sazh will always be my XIII OTP.

Current Mood: bored

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final fantasy xiii

My Opinions on the Final Fantasy XIII characters part 1

The characters of Final Fantasy XIII:

Lightning:
I like her. Sure she had her moments when I really think that she shouldn't be so bitchy, but really it's so nice to have such an assertive, slightly abrasive female compared to all the steadfast/noble/naive/girly-girl/genki girl/soft-spoken/lady-like female characters of old, that I've really embraced her. Sure, I'm kind of leaving out Celes from Final Fantasy VI and Faris from Final Fantasy V, because they were pretty cool in their own right. But Lightning doesn't CARE about the fact that she's not a girly-girl or that she might be hurting people's feelings. I like that she's able to speak her mind and act out on her feelings (like punching out Snow). She's also rational and can admit that she's wrong, so she's not entirely bull-headed and unreasonable. I think that she made an effective protagonist and I kind of wished that she had a love interest because I would love to see that kind of personality react to a love interest; of course, without in any way be detrimental to her inherent character presented in the game. She also reminds me of Squall, who I liked also because I find him to be assertive and having some steadfast values that go with his dumb, almost impulsive loner personality. Unlike some heroes, who shall remain nameless.

Snow:
Oh, Snow. You may not be a melodramatic, stoic, immature young man typical of recent Final Fantasies. It's just too bad that he's like the negative image of Americans portrayed in places like Europe and Asia, because he would have been refreshing. I don't really think that he's immature, at least not like Tidus; it's just that really, he's an idiot. He's like the BFG who's also a bull in a china shop because there were quite a few times when he can just ruin anybody's good plan. I mean, what kind of guy is he that he keeps calling himself a hero right after he dropped a main character's mom to her death. Sure it was accidental, and it did haunt him, but I like to think that he has some psychological issues that made him feel that it's imperative to keep a hopeful, positive attitude in the face of all the suckiness that he's going through and/or that he had caused. The whole romance deal with Serah, Lightning's sister, was cute, but it felt really contrived and lacking in some emotional depth. The whole "depth" of their romance as seen in game revolves around the girl having been made a slave of the gods and have the possibility of making others her fellow slaves, as well as having a guaranteed unfortunate end due to being a slave. And that's it. No "How I met my dream girl" or "Why I think she's my soulmate." Nada.

Hope:
I really expected to hate him. Really, I did. I really dislike the whole "revenge because you killed my parent" that a lot of young characters in video games have; I'm looking at you, Ken Amada from Persona 3. It's not the revenge aspect I don't like; afterall, I like Batman, Inigo Montoya, and Spiderman. Those people wait to grow up so they can actually do something and in the process learn to be a rational person. What I don't like is that these young, adolescent characters are scheming in-game to kill an adult. That's like those devil children in a Stephen King novel: CREEPY. Hope, at least, continues to rationalize to himself why Snow's death is important to him, and there were moments when he tries to not think that way. It's just unfortunate that when he meets Snow again, he's reminded that sometimes fools need to die if they have to learn their lesson. Really, the whole thing was another miscommunication between them that had resolved itself rather well, and they can all go happily together to a brighter future.

however: I don't really like the Hope/Lightning pairing that's been going around. I just don't see that AT ALL. One-sided crush, maybe, but really... no.

Current Mood: content
Current Location: School Computer Lab
Current Music: CNN in the break room

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Finished Final Fantasy XIII yesterday

I've finished Final Fantasy XIII yesterday, meaning that since buying the game a day after it came out, I have been grinding for three weeks in order to achieve this great achievement. Needless to say, I felt that the ending was a little lackluster.

It's probably because of the transition of how I played the final moments of the game. Like, before heading towards the final dungeon, I returned to open-sandbox world Gran Pulse to finish a couple missions. After I've done all I can, I returned to the final dungeon and ground my way through the level which was accompanied with particularly grating, pseudo-Twilight Zone music in the background; it gotten bad enough that the whole experience made me wish for an end to the horribleness or at least have the option to mute the music but keep the battle sounds going. Actually, I think I might have been able to but didn't think about it up to that point.

When I FINALLY got to the final boss, I gotta admit that it wasn't too challenging because it was more like a marathon of hitting the Big Bad and surviving his "REALLY POWERFUL" blows rather than the more urgent battles I've had with my missions, especially Titan's mission trial. I guess that's one more similarity to past final fantasies- easier boss fights compared to HARD missions. I've actually had to fight THREE boss fights which were divided up by fairly long, pretty cutscenes filled with melodrama like a Twinkie. Unlike a Twinkie, I wasn't filled with artificial sugary goodness; in fact, I was just waiting for the story to end.

I guess my problem with the ending was that it was a bit anti-climactic, and not just because I decided to read ahead on a fansite and spoiled the ending for myself, but when I compared to other endings like in Final Fantasy VII, VIII, IX and X, they were wrapped around so neatly. The end of the FFXIII game felt like it was open-ended enough to garner a sequel - which is would, as confirmed by the producers of the game, but really, that decision came after they finished making the game, so really I felt that there was something off with the ending itself. Wait, I think I know: because of how the entire focus of the game was more towards the characters rather than the world which they live in- like the absence of town exploration and interactions with other characters- that I really felt like I didn't care what happened to the world anyway. Don't get me wrong, I liked how the team cut corners like that so that they were able to make do with the bare bones while giving pretty exciting gameplay, but I guess I hadn't considered the story so much because of the game's focus on character development.

Oh well. At least this isn't the end of Final Fantasy XIII so I can look forward to the stuff later on. Overall, it was a pretty fun game that I'd like to replay now that I've gotten the hang of it.