Well, it’s done it… a game has finally broken me. I hate you, Final Fantasy XIII. I hate you with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. You make me want to play Final Fantasy VIII. That is how much I hate you.
Oh, when we started out, I enjoyed you. Your battle system was (and is still) pretty fun. The graphics were pretty. And the story was passable. But, then you just had to go and fuck it up.
Enter whiniest Final Fantasy story since Final Fantasy VIII. Seriously, these characters make Squall seem like a dude that’s got it all together.
Then, you decided to make EVERYTHING a chore. When the game started out, the leveling system was the perfect blend of fight vs. benefit. Of course, 30 hours in, it’s not. And that’s to be expected. But, the shift from easy leveling up to hard leveling up is so stark, it feels like you wanted me to pay for beating the game.
The levels shifted from interesting to look at to boring, repetitive and linear. It was no longer about getting to see the next segment of story or finding my way to the next boss battle. I just wanted to get out of the level.
And the story… God, the story. I can’t even express how poorly put together this story is. With a game that is mostly cutscenes, you’d think they’d be able to tell a decent narrative. But, no… the cutscenes are literally filled with your characters whining.
The game didn’t even have a “big antagonist” to force your hate on until 20 hours in. By then, I stopped caring who was fighting who and what they were fighting about.
But, the biggest transgression… the biggest clusterfuck of the entire game is making it so that a battle is over if your main character dies. This is the biggest pile of bullshit I’ve seen in a game in a long time. And I will hate you until the end of time for it, Final Fantasy XIII.
Normally, I can find a reason to play all the way through a game, no matter how bad it is. Heck, I had a second job for close to a year of reviewing bad games. But, there is nothing in Final Fantasy XIII that makes me want to keep playing it.
Let it be known that on March 27th, 2010 after playing Final Fantasy XIII for 30-something hours, the game officially broke me. And I hate it.
(If you’re curious, I haven’t beaten the game. I don’t know how far I am from the end of the game. Honestly, I don’t give a fuck. I don’t give a fuck about Cocoon. I don’t give a fuck about Gran Pulse. I don’t give a fuck about Lightning, Snow, Hope, Vanille, Fang or Sazh. In summary, I just don’t give a fuck about Final Fantasy XIII.)