Skip to the End

Okay, so I gave in. Final Fantasy obviously didn't WANT me to finish it, or it wouldn't have been so goddamn tedious. I watched an ending video on Youtube to make sure I wasn't missing anything. It didn't make a whole lotta sense. I googled 'FF13 ending' and there are a whole host of forum discussions about what it all means. What I took it to mean is; the writers couldn't write for shit.

Cieth Fang - bringing sexy back

To cut a (ridiculously, unnecessarily) long story short, Fang goes Cieth and wrecks the place up, everyone else kills a Falcie, Cocoon turns to crystal and everyone from Cocoon, including people who were previously dead or crystallised, turn up on Pulse and all live happily ever after because presumably the massive killer creatures that dogged the party's steps for the entire game are no longer an issue. So, that would have been worth playing 80 hours for, right? Mmm. So sad to see a franchise die on its arse like that. No wonder part 2's down to £10 in Grainger already.

Should've seen it coming though. All the clues for abysmal storytelling were there pretty early on:

1. Sazh is a Danny Glover analogue

He even says, repeatedly, "I'm getting too old for this."

2. Brand placement

This guy made good life choices

Positioning of female's brands: Fang - arm, Vanille -upper thigh, Lightning - tit.
Positioning of male's brands: Hope - wrist, Sazh - collar bone, Snow . . . wrist. So, the writers could picture three body parts on ladies, two of which are rather saucy. And on men . . . two. I'm not saying they had to give Snow a scrotal tat or anything (although that would have evened things up a bit) but am I alone in wanting a big ugly brand right across Hope's pretty little face? Just think it could've added another dimension to his character is all. Giving him a healthy 2 dimensions.

3. They couldn't think of more than 4 vehicles...

In my version, he's called Grunzolo

So, the Eidolons are all transformers right? And all those transformers are based on modes of transport? The Shiva twins are a motorbike, Odin's a horse, Brynhildr's a midlife crisis car, Bahamut's a dragon/jet. But Hecatoncheir and Alexander? Let's leave their shitty names to one side, and consider that Hecaton is a ride-on gun, and Alexander is a walking castle. WTF? I can think of at least five things they could've been that would've been cooler and made more sense within the context of the other Eidolons. For a start, by settling on one or the other for Bahamut, they could've left themselves with a dragon or a jet. Then they've still got: griffon, tank, helicopter, truck, dinosaur, and that's without really going into fantasy vehicles, spaceships and animals. But nope, FF13's writers went to 'Castle' before they went to T-Rex. And I know a lot was made of Alexander representing Hope's desire for safety and stability, but if he couldn't feel safe riding a robot T-Rex then the kid's a fucking asshole.

So now, it's on to Just Cause 2, which is proving to be just the fast-moving, mindless antidote I needed to all this pseudo-deep shit. Round up on that in the next installment.

Are We Nearly There Yet?

Three years I waited for FFXIII after completing FFXII. Three long years. Final Fantasy is one of the few franchises I'll break my 'never-buy-on-release-day' rule for. So when Edge got a preview, I rushed out to buy their hands-on review...

I couldn't believe it. It must just be some new reviewer trying to make a name for himself, I told myself. Their online critic was even harsher. I told myself they were wrong. I told myself that inspite of my earlier misgivings, Square Enix just wouldn't do that! So I went and bought and the game at launch and, as they usually are in the vast majority of their reviews...

 

FFXIII breaks so many rules of games and storytelling, I'm frankly astounded it got a sequel. I've been replaying it for the purposes of this blog (I would never have touched the thing again otherwise) and keep thinking that the three years I spent waiting for a new FF game didn't seem as long as the linear 'opening' section of the game itself. 25 hours! 25 hours until you can stop being shunted along through the dreadful storyline with all the usual emo dickweeds and actually do what you want. Although seeing as there are no towns and only one extremely long and tedious side quest, it doesn't really seem like much of a relief . All the most interesting parts of the story happen offscreen, so we're instead treated to lots of cutscenes of Lightning's only expression (brooding) or Hope's wide tear-tearfilled eyes as he tries to come to terms with the death of his mother or the seperation from his dad or his friend's debilitating case of I-don't-give-a-fuck. 

The Many Faces of Lightning, The Kristen Stewart of the Gaming World

Another thing about Lightning that makes me very uncomfortable is how thin she is. At least she doesn't have ridiculous balloon breasts with a life of their own (although bit part player Jihl Nabaat has that covered anyway>) but something about her skinniness really nagsat me. I think it's because she's a soldier. Her wetter-than-a-tissue-paper-diving-suit sister Serah is equally skinny, but why wouldn't she be? She farts around in lacy stockings and clearly has daddy issues. But Lightning's supposed to be some bladegun-toting badass with military training and L'Cie special moves. She shouldn't look like she lives off salads and coffee fumes. 

Having said all of that, I am at least finding it playable this time around, as I now have sufficient understanding of the crystarium and paradigms to not have to go through the deplorably dull tutorials. Maybe I'll even make it to the end this time. Maybe the end will be so revelatory and glorious, I'll be compelled to rush out and buy part two and spend even more time with Lightning's miserable fizzog. Who can say?