On Final Fantasy

Dear god, how are people still whining about Final Fantasy XIII? What bothers me is that this isn't regular fanboy ranting. People who I consider to be reasonable are ragging on this game pretty incessantly. Obviously, I liked it, and I have nothing wrong with people criticizing things that I like, but for some reason people don't seem content to just not like this one and leave it at that. Square is absolutely in a no-win situation with these people. It's become extremely clear that the traditional JRPG style isn't working out. People are doing it better. It's as simple as that. It's not like this is something nobody could have seen coming. They've spent a long time now branching Final Fantasy out into new ideas, and this is what I think will be seen as the apex of their thinking.

What the game is, essentially, is an extremely stripped-down RPG. They've decided to cut to the chase and deal with the things they aren't doing well by surgically removing them from their game. People complain about the linearity, but what they are fighting over honestly is the illusion of choice. Can you really call FFVII non-linear? Really? They tell you what to do, and then you go and do it. They give you a world map, and then you go to the town they tell you to go to. Yeah, there were side-quests, I suppose, but are you really going to decry XIII because it has a severe lack of distractions from the world-threatening plot?

By far the thing that bothers me the most is the line you have undoubtedly already heard about the game. "It gets good after about 20 hours." The line is, unfortunately, completely true. Yeah, it's a long time to wait. I mean, I thought the opening to Kingdom Hearts II was tedious, but I can't imagine how painful it's going to be to start a new game for XIII. I'm not saying that the 20 hour mark is good, or reasonable, but it's worth remembering that it really does get good after that. Personally, I was able to enjoy the game before that point and just started to enjoy it more afterwards, but whether it's worth the wait or not is absolutely up to you. The part that annoys me is that people seem to go through it, complaining all the while about how long it's taking, and then when they do hit that point they clam up. It's not like anybody doesn't know about that aspect of the game by this point. Either play it until it's good, or don't. Kvetching the whole time isn't going to make it better, and just makes people wonder why you play it if you hate it so much.

I dunno, I'm probably over-reacting. The fact of the matter is that FF XIII represents change, which is necessary for the series. Yeah, I look back fondly on FF VII, but that's what nostalgia does. No remake or attempt to recapture that game is going to live up to the memory we have of it, and Final Fantasy does itself a disservice by trying. They recognize that they have a need to avoid stagnation, and between this and the early reactions to XII, it looks like they're getting fought on it every goddamned step of the way.