The overall story isn't as bad as some people think I think, but the dialogue in some parts is not super good. Hope was one of the most annoying FF characters in my mind in the fist game. I rate this game a 7/10, but FFXII-2 IS a solId to me. I would say that 13-2 has some of the hardest to beat enemies in FF that you could try to beat. I think Both these games have good sountracks though.
I remember playing through this and not understanding a single thing about Fal'cie, L'cie, Celth, etc. until half way through the game because it started throwing words at you from the beginning. I appreciate that there wasn't some on the nose exposition, but this game was needlessly obtuse at times.
Yea I wanted to give this game a shot even though I've quit twice. I got to the first battle with the priest couldnt win and said fuck this game. I'm just watching the summary so I can move on to part two.
Super Iroquois Snake Use Lightning, Sahz, and Vanille with the Hero's Charge paradigm (Commando, Synergist, Medic). If all of Sahz's buffs are active, switch to Diversity (Commando, Ravager, Medic) so Sahz can hit too. Aim for the heads between the pauldrons and the main head and use blitz as Lightning. When only the central head remains, switch to Relentless Assault (Commando, Ravager, Ravager) and just do whatever to kill it. Switch to Diversity if you need to heal, or Hero's Charge if you need to reapply the buffs. Tbh, the first fight with Barthandelus and the fight with Cid both gave me more trouble than the final boss, so if you farm properly and level up your gear, you won't have much problem through the rest of the game afterwards.
Super Iroquois Snake i believe u dont know that u need to destroy other part of him before attacking the main head. Destroy his other part of bodies then its become easy. I need to retry 3 times until i realize about this
@@zacatkinson3926 As someone who was hyped for it and followed its development for 15 years I can tell you no it's not. 1. Even after 15 years of development the story released incomplete then they released DLC to replace the missing story, they didn't release the last 2 DLCs so it remains incomplete. 2. The world is beautiful but its so huge that walking around it is boring. They said this was for realism but realistically speaking if I had the ability to teleport I would use it but Noct doesn't outside of combat. 3. Instead of feeling like a road trip with the boys it feels like a gay boy band simulator who talk about being models, taking selfies, and dresses. 4. Most of the characters are stale and boring hell his wife is the worst she's included so little that there's no reason to care about her. 5. Things that were promised were not in the final version. 6. Despite having a rich lore where a war is going on we get boring side quests like fetch stones, look at frogs and take pictures. They had the perfect building blocks for good side quests and still messed it up. Most of them are fetch quests and because it's boring to walk around all you get is boring. 7. It has a good story but it was told so poorly Most people wouldn't even notice 8. You can't just buy season pass you need to buy multiple DLC packs which is scummy. The only thing I enjoyed was the combat, they had the perfect setup and 15 years to get it done and still failed
Square Enix’s writing has been going downhill after they hit their peak with CHRONO Trigger and FF7. The only exceptions being FF10,FF12 and the promise of what FF15 could’ve been if they had focused the whole story on the game and not tried to push some shit movie and an also shit anime that nobody wanted to fucking watch. I think FF15’s biggest problem was how much time the game and story spent in development, it got too big. If they had just focused and streamlined the narrative and only made a video game, what they’re good at! Then it would’ve been an incredible game
@@thedeepfriar745 the issue with final fantasy 15 is that it wasn’t even supposed to be 15. It got rewritten and scraped, it used to final fantasy 13 versus
It isnt that bad just streched especially with the fact that the party pretty much meets up in like end of the second act , from pulse it's great that too they wasted a lot of time , they could have made it shorter by 10 hours or brought in new things. I'd say solid 8/10 a lot of people say it to be hard, honestly i thought it's one of the easiest FF
I am not usually confused by complicated plots, even when most people are, but this game confused even me, and even after watching this video, I still don't understand.
I thought it was easy to understand, there's only two factions. Cocoon and Pulse, now all you have to understand is the characters which are well developed and written. FFXII had more than I can even remember all their freakin names. (not that I dislike XII just making a point). Even X is harder to understand what with (spoilers) Tidus being real but not real and maybe not disappearing but maybe will when they destroy Sin.
No that's only if you don't play the game. The story is actually much simpler than people like to admit, Let me simplify it even further by removing the complicated terms that require people to read datalogs. Once upon a time there was a "One God", this god created a planet and with the help of many other gods and demons. Life was born in this planet and it evolved, however at one point in time this "One God" left the world and gods and demons clashed, gods created an artificial satelight above planet and took most people living on the planet, there. While the people that were left on the surface, recieved the protection of demons and fought to keep themselves independant. After this separation, the planet had grown wild and creatures forther evolved into monsters, and survival depended on being strong, the weak becoming food for the strong or more evolved. The gods instructed the humans living in their satelight to completely forget about the planet and that anything that comes from there represents nothing but death and misery. And for centuries people learned to hate the planet and anything related to it. Then after society had been estabilished, technology developed and empires had been founded on the satelight, the demons sent envoys to do a mission for them on the satelight. These envoys, go do their thing but while they are doing it the come in contact with a boy living in the satelight, that boy ends up being chosen as an envoy too but he has no way of knowing that, the envoys managed to complete what they had to do, and with their success they are left to rest but being crystalized, sadly the boy suffered the same fate, much to a a troubled father's dismay. Elsewhere the govern had become corrupt and a couple of sister's had been torn apart by their social standing. The older sister choose to become a soldier and fought daily to feed the family of two, while the young sister was convinced by a common childhood friend to enter a rebel group and deal with whatever the government has been doing to certain people at the time(I'll have you play the game to see what this is all about, or the text will become much bigger). In time, the troubled Father tries everything to save his kid, traveling around the world, he gets involved with the Older sister when she is sent to fight against the rebel group, only to find out what the government had been doing behind everyone's back, as soon as these people find each other, the demons once again move and choose them to become their envoys, at the same time the two envoys who were initially sent to the Satelight start moving again, and so the entire world becomes their enemy(they are hated servants of the demons after all) This is pretty much what's happening in the story. Just change demons, envoys and Gods, with their respective Pulse Fal'cie, L'cie and Cocoon Fal'cie terms, and everything will become clear. Oh yeah and the "One God" is called the Maker, he made the Fal'cie I'll stop here because more than this and i'll be a spoiler. Let me just say that our characters are only puppets, losing their right to live the moment they were chosen, only to fight the puppets following the Fal'Cie on the other side, in a quest to purge the strings that bind them and earn their freedom. You don't actually need to read everything in the datalog, after you understand certain concepts most other terms can be understood by just following the story. There's even a moment in which Sahz the "Troubled Father" cuts Lightning short a mentioning that regardless of what term she uses to describe her function, she's still a soldier, which shows that these terms are easier to understand then people think.
I still don't understand a few things. 1. Why would the group want to kill Orphan once the influence of Barthandalus is gone? 2. How did the group change out of their Cieth forms in the final boss room? 3. What explanation is given as to why everyone but Fang and Vanile transformed out of crystals? Furthermore, why DIDN'T Fang and Vanile leave their crystal forms? 4. What did Barthandalus actually want to happen to Cocoon? Why would Barthandalus want Cocoon to be destroyed if he's bound to it? 5. How does anyone know what The Maker actually wants? What if the Fal'cie who wanted it to return DID destroy Cocoon in sacrifice, and The Maker still doesn't show up?
1. Because Orphan HIMSELF wanted to die, and leaving him alone would've just prolonged the mass-murder-suicide. 2. The same entity that forced Fang out of Ragnarok a thousand years ago intervened. The entity's identity is revealed in the sequel. 3. Said entity also freed the gang from crystal. But Fang and Vanille needed to stay within the crystal pillar to stop Cocoon from going "end of the dinosaurs" on Pulse. 4. As was already explained by Cid in the game, he and his fellow fal'Cie were dissatisfied with their existence, and killing everyone on Cocoon along with themselves would (they thought) summon their Maker who would reset everything. 5. The answers to that lie in the deeper mythology of the XIII series.
1. Because Orphan likely wouldn’t have let them go out of that room in the first place. He was going to force one of them to become Ragnarok no matter what because he wanted Cocoon gone. 2. The goddess of death Etro interfered from the unseen realm and changed all of them back because she took pity on them. Etro is known to have an affinity for humanity unlike the other gods Pulse and Lindzei. 3. The same happens at the end, Etro takes Lightning and everyone else out of crystal stasis as she felt bad for them. She likely didn’t do the same for Fang and Vanille because they were literally apart of the crystal pillar holding Cocoon up. 4. Barthandelus wanted to kill Orphan and drop Cocoon because all of the Cocoon Fal’Cie wanted to meet their “maker,” and they believed the only way to do that was go to the unseen realm where Etro was because the Fal’Cie thought that’s where the Maker fled to when they left. In order to get to the unseen realm, they needed millions of deaths to open Etro’s gate wide enough to go through themselves. 5. They don’t know what the Maker wants. It was out of desperation (at least that’s what I think) that Barthandelus orchestrated the destruction of Cocoon. The Cocoon Fal’Cie wanted to see their maker because they were tired of being stagnant and unable to grow like humans.
Great video man, I took a break from the game for half a year, videos like these are really good to tell not only where the hell I left off but what the game's story is, and also to prevent players from starting from the beginning all over again.
As someone who followed the entire Kingdom Hearts series with its convoluted, time travelling, clone-sprouting plotline, and both understood and enjoyed it, I can vouche that this game's confusing plot is a product of its maker's failure in telling a decent story. Complicated stories have their own merits but stupidly complicated stories that end up writing themselves into a corner and have to five-way Deus Ex Machina themselves to have a moderately decent ending are just that, stupid.
Aguila701 Yes, among other things. How did that even happen? Was it their focus? If so who gave it to them and when? Didn't they wake up from a crystallized state once already? How come they became humans again after this to sacrifice themselves again in the sequels? Note that this is only about two of the characters and doesn't even touch on how idiotic the rest of the characters' stories are.
Thanks for this dude, I just bought Lightning returns on pc and I didnt fully finished 13 or 13-2 so I wanted to get a full recap and your video is perfect!
LRFFXIII is the worst in my opinion. I had it since it came out and i never finished it due to its horrible gameplay (by that i don,t mean the fights, but just the time limit, not allowing me to explore the world and pay attention to small details, and always having an impression of rushing) I almost finished it but i went too fast and now i have days with nothing to do until the end. Unlike FFXIII where i have 200h of gameplay or FFXIII-2 where i have more than 500h, i only have like...24h on LRFFXIII... it's really a shame for the price it came out :/ The story is good, but gosh the gameplay ruined it for me If you finished it, please tell me how the final fight goes, i'm curious about that, and i'd also be curious about your thoughts on it
I'm not a fan of turn based but I liked the way XIII delivered it, it was fast paced, you could play around with the camera and characters actually moved about during battle.
@@pogman3982 I dislike turn based, I hate it actually that’s why I’ve never played any final fantasy before XV. And that’s also why I’m watching these recapitations of all the stories
Let me try and summarize. basically the group gets cursed brands to destroy the small planet in the sky by an evil god and are given a time frame in which to do it. The irony being that the evil god is supposed to be the people's protector, a priest. He wants to destroy the planet as a sacrifice to get the makers attention to rebuild the planets... I think. The group says uh uh. we're gonna save the small planet no matter what the cost but still ends up destroying the planet. Dwl 😂
Let me try and summarize. basically the group gets cursed brands to destroy the small planet in the sky by an evil god and are given a time frame in which to do it. The irony being that the evil god is supposed to be the people's protector, a priest. He wants to destroy the planet as a sacrifice to get the makers attention to rebuild the planets... I think. The group says uh uh. we're gonna save the small planet no matter what the cost but still ends up destroying the planet. Dwl 😂
It's really funny that this game's story is pretty decent, not bad at all actually, but the problem is they let that guy that directed FFX-2 be in charge of it...
i dont care what anybody says about ff13, i loved it. i loved the graphics, i loved lightning and i really loved the combat system. and for you cheeky bastards, you press more than just the X button.
I agree! FFXIII gets alot of shit. I'm sorry FFXIII wasn't a carbon copy of games we've seen in the past. The plot was focused people thrown into a situation where they were basically guilty by association with an underlying theme that shapeshifters had infiltrated and manipulated human government. It was a huge conspiracy. You were on the run and in no way in that game did I feel like they could chill out and explore a town, when they tried it ended badly. Final Fantasy XII was much more open than Final Fantasy XIII but I also feel like the story, gameplay and dialouge are dull as shit in XII by comparison. I loved the on the run feel within XIII and the game did open up and have a slew of endgame content. I wish the sequels never existed but that's about it FFX and it's towns were linear as fuck and I love that game. After the first 18 hours and you get to pulse there are much more open areas and parts that branch out more than. You were just trying to survive, you were branded with dark powers and intended to be a destroyed against your will by beings trying to play puppet master. This is coming from a guy with about 400 hours on both FFX and FFXIII, respectively. Why am I comparing FFX to FFXIII? Because so many of the "problems" people have with XIII can be found in X. The first few hours of FFVII is a few slashes and an occasional potion and bolt. Because the opening of FFXIII gets so much shit for it. Again, sequels were absolute garbage because FFXIII had no cliff hanger, only because I was really attentive to that universe you actually find out that there were hundreds to thousands of Fal'Cie shapeshifters lodged within the human government aside from Barthandalus. They could've had humans and Fal'Cie continue to fight and obscure the whole concept of the purge around until that fight drew the attention of the creator like the Fal'Cie intended to do with Ragnarok. Buuut. They didn't. To be completey fucking honest I like the original FFXIII more than FFX and I fucking love FFX. I couldn't compare FFVII to FFXIII until I see an HD remake, FFVII had more exploration but only because the world allowed it.
+Talon Marshall I loved the world and story of 13, I didn't dislike the combat but I got a little bored of cause you could just autobattle everything aside from boss fights if you wanted. I just find it funny people bash a game that is based on story soley on its combat. I don't think I've honestly played a FF I didn't like at all.
WonOneWun I loved FFXIII but it isn't perfect. The combat lacks depth, you won't get an argument out of me here. You can't switch who you control in battle, and if the party leader dies it's auto fail. Hate that, you can phoenix down the other two, but not yourself? It puts more focus on auto battling and once you get to pulse, grinding. I always grinded in Final Fantasy but it's more important there due to the lack of depth. There are things you can do, you can change the battle speed to slow, and set the default to abilities to auto battle in the settings to make up that time for actual selections. Paradigm switching and grinding are prevalent in it's in game content but the combat does lack depth. The sad thing is though, is that even though I can't command the other two in my party outside if paradigms they're smarter than most people I PUG with in FFXIV. Sad, but it damn sure is true. Between the combat lacking depth, Hopes character, and Tetsuya Nomura's hypersexuslized costume design the game irks me. I like chicks in miniskirts but the design is borderline porn star while the writing is completely devoid of any sexual dialouge to keep that teen rating. I also understand the complaints about linearity but FFX gets a free pass? Ugh.
I found this video helpful. For the first half of the game, I wasn't really clear on what this was about. Taking out all the in-between things, the hallways, the avalanche of tutorials, and the battles really made this clear. The plot is overwrought and hardly ever interesting. By the end, there's really no character to like or admire. Lightning is a strong character, surely, but she can't carry this heavy as Adamant drama on her own. I can't say I'd be interested in playing start to finish a second time.
I have played this game more than twice but I never really understood the story with all the terminology.. hahaha. This video which is just few minutes was able to explain it all!! I wish this video has been available when ffxiii was initially released and that I was able to watch it so that I'd understand what these are all about.
Bless you. I got this game not too far off release and only picked it up again recently. Couldn’t make any sense of the jargon in the beginning and you summed it up perfectly
Hey man! Huge thanks for the well-done recap. I'm just about to finally start XIII-2, so I needed a story repeat. You did awesome, and I remembered why I always liked the game, despite the backlash it received online.
@@RubenRamirez666 What? how so? FF7 tells you everything you need to know for the story. The spinoffs (sequels and prequels) are just there to fill out the world more. Like Crisis Core, we didn't need it by any means, but it shows us what happened clearly rather than through memories. It also expands on who Zach is. We didn't need to know what kind of guy he was, but it adds to the experience of FF7.
@@RubenRamirez666 atleast not like kingdom hearts u need ps2,psp,ps4,3d,3ds,mobile devices to understands the story ,thank god we can watch the walktrough and cutscence in youtube . and guess what upcoming games on switch ! HAHAHAH
Thanks man! I'm about to play Final Fantasy XIII-2 for the first time and had already forgotten about most of the first part which I played like 5 or 6 years ago. This saved me a lot of time and was very well explained!
I actually loved how the story was presented, nothing was really dumbed down and exposited to the audience, because these characters live in this world, they don't need exposition. I also think that while it is a bit TOO ambiguous as to how, the very ending happening the way it does and sort of coming out of nowhere, adds a lot of mystery to Fang and Vanille.
That's fair. It's just something to consider as a developer. There shouldn't be a requirement of an in game dictionary, but as far as the characters in the game not needing exposition, that makes since. Until reading that though, I hadn't really considered that it's usually common for you to play a character that is thrown into new world (FFX) or adopts a new and sudden role in that world that they never knew the ins and outs of, so it makes sense for someone to explain it for them and you as the player.
I know a lot of people didn't like the XIII Series for a lot different of reasons and some of those reasons don't make sense to me but I loved it. XIII is the first Final Fantasy game that I owned. I also love VII and X series and even though I screwed up on disc 4 I loved VIII too and I know a there are a lot of other Final Fantasy games are really good that I haven't played yet.
AGothicFairyTale IMHO, as long as you like it, that's the only opinion that matters when it comes to preferences. Games are about having fun, and some people take critical and commercial appeal far too seriously.
The first Final Fantasy Game I played was 10 and it was my friends.He brought it over one day and we played it for a while. 13 is the first one that I actually bought and completed.
Thats cool, everyone I know says their favorite FF game is the first they played, mine is FF4, that story just hits home for me, and also the first I played lol
Watching this now makes my passion for Final Fantasy XIII come back to life, even if it never died. Your video explained very well the story, giving me more explanation about stuff i was slightly confused about, and it's also a great video to show to my friends who dare to ask me what is the story line of my favorite video game. I don't understand why most people are ''spitting'' on that game. Ok it's nickname is Hallway Simulator and it's a very well found nickname, but I think they should focus more on the story. I mean, it's not the worst of the trilogy *cough* LRFFXIII *cough* and Square Enix did try something different. The characters are well made with a great backstory and motivation and it allowed me to be touched by what they lived, which is something missing in a lot of games. They respect the age and the origins of the characters, which is probably why everyone hates Hope, cause he acts like a normal teenager who had nothing to do in all that mess and who's mom died in the events, explaning why is is so ''weak'' compared to everyone else, aka an ex soldier, a guy leading a small ''resistance'' group, 2 girls from a land of savages beasts and an old man with nothing to lose. i think most final fantasy fans were not ok with that change from square enix...and i really do think they should stop comparing the game between each others. Again, thanks for your video :3
+Daniel L Yeah that was what drew me out of the game. I really enjoyed it, but found the story very hard to follow because of all these foreign terms. I didn't know what the sanctum was or what the hell an Orphan is until I watched this video. Still not sure if I understand lol.
+Sean M Sanctum was Cocoon government meant to put a human face on their actual captivity. Orphan was the fal'cie god granted the power to keep Cocoon running and direct the course of its existence. Bart was its agent that listened to the pain of Orphan and tried to have it killed, so that everyone on Cocoon would die (something normally against fal'cie programming to happen), so that the Gate of Etro would open and the Maker/Lindzei would notice this, who would then determine that this world is finally failure so it could be recreated (Orphan would be killed and Bart would have been alive in order to meet his Maker and join him in a New World).
It's not that bad if you break it down. Fal'Cie: Powerful creatures with vast magical abilities whose job is to keep order in the world. L'cie: Humans who are branded by a Fal'Cie, they are given increased magical and physical abilities in order to complete a focus (a mission) given to them by the Fal'Cie who branded them. Cie'th: Former L'cie who failed or didn't complete their focus and turned into monsters who lash out at anyone that comes near them, human, L'cie or otherwise. Cie'th stones: When a Cie'th is left alone long enough, it eventually loses its strength and power and turns into a stone, with its focus still branded into it. Other L'cie can access these stones and choose to complete the Cie'th focus for them, allowing them to crystallize. Pulse is the original planet made by the creator on which the Fal'cie and the humans originally lived. When the humans started warring among each other too much, the Fal'Cie in a desperate effort to keep control over them made Cocoon and took most of the people up there. Eventually, after many centuries, people forgot what Pulse really was and it became like a legend to them, as the Cocoon Fal'cie continuously brainwashed the people of Cocoon into believing that anything from Pulse was the enemy and needed to be destroyed.
I don't mind with term like fal'cie and l'cie. What confuse me is they use many common word (Focus, Cocoon, Cavalry, Sanctum, Orphan, etc) and use it as their own term. So every dialogue is ambiguous to me
@@BigBoss-sh2jx people are just dumb asses. You literally see people say the entirety of the Witcher series is amazing but it’s story sucks ass until Witcher 3
Thank you for this very in-depth explanation of what happened in Final Fantasy XIII. I had played it about a month or two ago and I was mostly confused as to what was going on. I could understand the obvious things as they happened but not the things that required more in depth thought and analysis.
It's probably the shittiest way to present a story but if you didn't read the datalog then the story will make no sense whatsoever because it assumed you've read them and know immediately what fal'cie and L'cie are and how the government structure works etcetera etcetera. So the story does make perfect sense but this is presented in the worst way possible.
The thing with the data Log is true which shows that they fucked up but the story has plot holes, deep plot holes. I'm just saying ragnarok, the power of friendship at the end of the game which is so dumb and makes the howl crystal thing obsolete and the most fucked up plot hole is being adressed by Cid Raines by himself and calls deus ex machina. This is bad storytelling at its finest. This is a bad plot. It has some nice ideas but nothing more. And I can't believe that the author worked several years on that story.
Thank you so much for this! I've been playing the game over 2 years and I just beat the final boss and was kinda confused on the whole Ragnorak concept! Thanks for the help!
I honestly was more confused with FF12's story, this game was honestly extremely fun and I enjoyed the story along the way. It got really good when I was able to explore in Grand Pulse and do side quests as well. This game gets so much hate but I thought it was a step in the right direction diverting from the previous RPG era. Just my opinion, as we all are entitled to our own. I'm super pumped for the FF7 remake and XV as well!
Underrated by morons are retards, so who cares. It was a success in showing how extremely fast-paced, challenging and driven a RPG can be. That's why this franchise is so much above the rest: they try something new with every title, and actually take the risk of not pleasing the masses - including their own fanbase - all for the sake of always making better games.
I agree, I think most the hate is undeserved. Every once in a while ideas latch on and gullible ppl latch onto it and band together as if it's some sort of tribal bonding ritual. Unfortunately FFXIII was caught in that as the people that enjoy XIII seem to really enjoy it and the people that don't seem to all repeat the same things in the same way. I guess I could hope for a better world where more people think for themselves and judge content for it's own worth and if they don't like it then fine, but at least give a non regurgitated reason. People hate some things just to try to score cool points and it has been that was for FF for a while now and it's really dumb. It's like that with a lot of popular game companies by default now too, it's sad. No matter if the game is good or not, hating became in and cool. Which is idiotic. At least it makes it easy to spot ppl I don't care to associate with and it's on the way out.
@keffypoo the only thing i'll disagree is that Final Fantasy is above the rest. Star Ocean, the Chrono series(Yes I loved Cross too), the Mana series(both Secret of Mana and Seiken Densetsu III which I'd do anything to have a remake or a port released here, including Legend of Mana and Sword of Mana), Tales of series, Suikoden(on of the best Konami titles ever), Wild Arms series, the classic Phantasy Star, and Dragon Quest. Every one of this series is a serious competitor for best J-RPG, even the poor Breath of Fire, which was murdered by Capcom for no reason and Grandia series which died out for, once again, no reason.
As someone who picked up the FF series with VII and couldn't continue past XIII (getting older, having a family, etc) I don't have time to enjoy the games or have time to watch full play-throughs. I've made it through your whole recapitation series and look forward to when you continue and do others, so I can at least know what happened!!! Keep it up!
XIII's biggest failure (bigger than even the linearity), was the god awful story that just collapsed in on itself multiple times. By the ending of the game it's so convoluted and ridiculous that I just didn't care about anything - everything just happens because 'reasons' and there are no grounded rules to the universe. There's no threat or sense of urgency because the game keeps introducing ridiculous concepts that negate most of what came beforehand.
+Matthew Etter ... none are nearly as linear as XIII, even it's 2 sequels. If you think XII, VII or even the ps1 entries are linear... then I doubt you've played them.
+Matthew Etter what are you even talking about? XIII is easily the most linear of the series. You're asking if he knows what linear means when you clearly don't. The storyline itself is linear in pretty much every ff game, that's not what we're talking about.. obviously.
I was just about to type this. The story was way too out there and became deluded and confusing but still moved forward without giving the player a full understanding of what was supposed to be happening. I beat the game and didn't even remember why I was fighting the final boss
true , and dude dont reason with anyone who likes XIII trilogy they are new fans to FF and most likely havent tried any FF .. FF wasnt that linear until XIII came to the screen all fans went gay for that chick lightning though, all of the fans who went through FFI to FFXII will see none was compliantly linear .. they say '' i love who complains about FFXIII being too linear when FFX was linear too but the big difference is so clear in between the two even FFX became 2nd best selling after FFVII :/
I'd say 'don't try to reason with people who bash FFXIII', they are always far too clueless about the FF series and RPG in general to have a valid opinion. All FF games are strictly linear, FFXIII just did away with the hypocrisy of it and integrated the plot into the direction, which was brilliant and gave the game a feeling of pursuit a lot of previous games (FFVII, for instance) should have had. I have played all FF games since the late 1980s (in their times), and FFXIII remains one of my favourite. Trying to use experience as an argument is as empty and shallow as all your other arguments. You probably started playing FF games with FFVII or FFX, and claim you know more than other players, when you know just as little. Sales numbers as an argument is the nail in the coffin of your pitiful and pathetic tongue-lashing. FFX is probably the worst title in the series, and is only liked by people who were children in 2001, and cannot take off nostalgia glasses. FFX got nothing right: bad plot (the ending saved it a bit), shallow, cliché, forgettable characters, awful and dull gameplay, terrible, uninteresting growth system. Four game aspects FFXIII did much, _much_ better than FFX. I love it when people try to bash one of the best games in the series citing one of the worst. Opinions are cool, but there are facts which ignorant players such as you seem to love ignoring.
This fucking game's story is so convoluted. Can someone explain to me why Squeenix thought it would be a great idea to throw non-existent words at me and expect me to understand what they mean when I barely knew anything about the world's history and culture?
Thank you for this recap!!! I absolut love this game. When I played it many years ago, I was left with the impression that the plot had a deeper meaning. And I would like to share my pov and personal interpretation of this intricated storyline. After much though, I think this game main theme is about "exiting the matrix". Much like the movie, the characters in ffx iii are trapped in an artificial construction, a matrix if you will, build and designed by non human entities to enslave and usurp their will power. Those who dare to wake up, in the game through contact with non human entities that are not necessarily aligned with the ones that created the Coccon matrix( though it seems at times they are all interconnected) are persecuted and when finally reach their goal, they misteriously apear in a another place, or dimesion, the demonized land of Pulse, as they were already there all long. But only "resting" in crystal form. The same goes for the movie. Neo leaves the matrix and unffortunately wakes up in a distopyan reality. In lighter note, the characters in the game wake in a unnexplored world that seems ready to start anew. The fact that the characters wake on Pulse as they were already there kinda makes me think of Pulse as their original world or perhaps an after life, an life after the illusion is over. I also cannot stress how the fact the famale characters "save the world" represents, to me, the ascencion of the supressed female energy. In Fritoj Capra's book "The turning point" he says that the non acknwoledment of the dualist nature of mankind and our masculine and female energies presented all around in nature are the leading cause to societal crisis. The overvaluation of masculine enegy and the supression of female atributes are seem in our destructive and individualist ways of life and also in our disconection with nature and with ourselves. He predicts that a turning point for this perceptual crisis would be the ascencion of female energy and the balance of both manifestations. Which simbolically happens in tha game when Vanile and Fang become Ragnarok. It May seem like in reading too much in this but I find that this interpretation holds many connections to what we are experiencing as a human collective lately. Even the idea that non human entities are pulling the strings in our world through money and religion can be made. Whistleblowers, Ronald Bernard and Karen Hudes, both were big players in the financial system, share so much about this. It honestly took years and some soul searching to come to these interpretations. I find this game fascinanting and if art imitates life, than this game sure did it.
+Samanosuke1138 I agree with you sir! I loved these games. Square did something different, and I loved it. I got 9 ways to play turn based combat, 10 and 13 are just creative ways to tell a compelling story in the Final Fantasy Universe :)
Very compelling storytelling. Also, what most people don't understand is that virtually all final fantasy games were linear. extremely linear. The presentation is different, but still the same game and if it were in a 3rd person perspective, it would play the same too. Heck most of the Side Missions didn't even happen until Pre Final boss anyway. This game did nothing different really than any other game in the franchise other than put the side missions in the post game so you can enjoy the narrative as its meant to be. I mean, if I was going to turn into a C'ieth, I wouldn't be dicking around in Taejin's Tower or some crap lol..I would be trying to complete my focus.
+fgeo97 GuitarVids I don't know if you're trying to troll me or what, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say you aren't so I can give you a well worded response. And it will likely be TL, but worth reading. To inform you, my "research" is exhaustive, but I'll really only note that the most important bits include that I have played and completed (minimum 2x) all Final Fantasy numbered titles, save for II, III (at the final dungeon), XI, and XIV. Actually, I'm currently in replay of IV, V, and LRFFXIII, so, to make a harsh statement without knowing anything about me, or my argument for the game, was kinda dumb on your part. Moving on, when I stated that virtually all games are linear like XIII, the keyword was VIRTUALLY. I'm well aware of XII's very open world approach similar to that of an MMO. But because of that, the story suffered vastly and the characters came off as very bland and lacking any real depth (Vaan is who the game "centers around" and he's not even the main character for crying out loud!!) I'm glad you find it hilarious that people would defend 13, but that's because people actually enjoyed it. Just because you didn't doesn't give you the right to take apart their analysis of the game, but I digress. So, my "insult..." Ok lets look at Final Fantasy VII, a game so revered, it's getting a full on remake (which, by the way, looks exactly like FF 13 and from what I can see will play exactly like it, and be episodic like it.) Flow of the game in a nutshell: Mako reactor-sector 7-mako reactor-sector 5-sector 6-sector 7-shinra building-kalm-chocobo farm (first technical sidequest if you farm the money to rent a stable and get the shitty chocobos that are available at the time)-mine-junon-costa del sol-juno-corel-gold saucer-cosmos canyon-nibelheim-rocket town-back to gold saucer-temple-city of the ancients. Disc 1. This is a very linear storytelling path. You acquire vehicles to get you to and from places from time to time with very little room for deviation as it slows down the narrative. Most every Final Fantasy does not open up the deviation paths until the end of the game when you just have to fight the final boss. Chrono Trigger was also like this and it has a ridiculous amount of side quests. Final Fantasy 6 is also very linear. 4 is very linear. They give you just enough to progress the narrative, but I don't know what I'm talking about. Now I'm going to break down your points: 1. Hallway-typically when you walk through a city or an alley and when the game is presented in a behind the NPC 3rd person view, it is perceived as a hallway. This is not relevant as it is common in a plethora of games. 2. The Characters-this is subjective. This may be a reason for YOU to not like the game, but not a reason to dismiss others. 3. Every FF is linear. I clearly stated most. But if you follow your own advice and DO YOUR RESEARCH, you'll clearly see what I'm talking about. 4. You don't have to auto-battle....you don't. so there's not much else to say about that. It will make the game more challenging, but you don't have to auto-battle. You can pick commands like any other FF game. 5. The story fits the hallway. Presentation is everything. This game is presented in the way that say....Action films are presented in theaters. Your character is always on the run. No time for anything, because they have something to do that's time sensitive. the story fits the presentation. 6.The battle system is better than 12. That also is subjective. While I loved 12's battle system, by the end of the game, i was just using the left analog stick to run around and my characters did the fighting for me. I was just watching the movie...so you are way more active in it in 13 and it requires constant tweaks for every battle and every situation. So I give the crown to 13 in this match up. Side note, FF10 is a hallway but you see it from an isometric point of view. There is stuff to do on the side........... at the end of the game when you get the Airship because...story matches presentation. And the battle system is ATB/TB hybrid....to say its the best is subjective also....so not a relevant fact or a reason to tear down my comment... k. bye.
The ending really never made sense to me. It was so out of nowhere. Well yeah, it was explained in the sequel, but was there any buildup to that explanation?
I think there was. The original idea and my headcanon is that the maker actually returned trough the gate and saw all the chaos his Fal'Cie did and decided to fix it by ressurecting the L'cie back to normal.
2018 can we get a FF13-FF Lightning Returns, Remastered onto one Disc. The mythology of this series is capable of being one of the greatest of all time. Just needs to be executed right.
I think what threw me off the most is that all of the areas in Cocoon; the coastal town of Bhodum, the crystal shores, the sky portions in the Palamecia, everything, are all located INSIDE the sphere of Cocoon, which is floating in the sky above Pulse and even if you read the datalogs, this is never made clear. It is basically like living inside of a localized moon.
Why did Final Fantasy stories after X all become so damn convoluted. Politics of Vahn in FFXI, Politics of FFXIII with Lcie, Falcie, Brands, Cieth, Politics of FFXV, Weird time travel in Kingdom Hearts 3 and 2.
Exactly. I miss when heroes and villains have simple and clear motivations for doing what they do. Like in FFX when the whole point of Yuna and her party's pilgrimage was to destroy big baddie in the sky. Or Sephiroth in FF7 summoning meteor so he can resurrect and meet his mommy while Cloud's party tries to stop him from casting said Meteor.
Yeah. Wants you ascertain it, it's really. It throws you in the shit in this giant metropolis. The political manipulation and shape shifting demi-god theme is actually really good. FFXIII gets alot of shit. I'm sorry FFXIII wasn't a carbon copy of games we've seen in the past. The plot was focused people thrown into a situation where they were basically guilty by association with an underlying theme that shapeshifters had infiltrated and manipulated human government. It was a huge conspiracy. You were on the run and in no way in that game did I feel like they could chill out and explore a town, when they tried it ended badly. It was a futuristic Utopia, the fact that shopping was done on kiosks, AKA online didn't kill the immersion for me. Final Fantasy XII was much more open than Final Fantasy XIII but I also feel like the story, gameplay and dialouge are dull as shit in XII by comparison. I loved the on the run feel within XIII and the game did open up and have a slew of endgame content. I wish the sequels never existed but that's about it FFX and it's towns were linear as fuck and I love that game. After the first 18 hours and you get to pulse there are much more open areas and parts that branch out more than. You were just trying to survive, you were branded with dark powers and intended to be a destroyed against your will by beings trying to play puppet master. This is coming from a guy with about 400 hours on both FFX and FFXIII, respectively. Why am I comparing FFX to FFXIII? Because so many of the "problems" people have with XIII can be found in X. The first few hours of FFVII is a few slashes and an occasional potion and bolt. Because the opening of FFXIII gets so much shit for it. Again, sequels were absolute garbage because FFXIII had no cliff hanger, only because I was really attentive to that universe you actually find out that there were hundreds to thousands of Fal'Cie shapeshifters lodged within the human government aside from Barthandalus. They could've had humans and Fal'Cie continue to fight and obscure the whole concept of the purge around until that fight drew the attention of the creator like the Fal'Cie intended to do with Ragnarok. Buuut. They didn't. To be completey fucking honest I like the original FFXIII more than FFX and I fucking love FFX. I couldn't compare FFVII to FFXIII until I see an HD remake, FFVII had more exploration but only because the world allowed it.
That was so god damn confusing! Like I'm at a loss haha...I could imagine if I played the game. There are too waaaay out there names to get straight. The last good Final Fantasy was 10 in my opinion but I'm old, so prob just me.
I wished they allowed more interaction with the environment in this linear game. FFX allowed us to do that which honestly fooled me to being a linear game. The story in each chapter could've been more in depth, instead we get an opening/ending story and in between a hallway to travel on. What was Szah's story anyways? FFXIII-Lightning Returns is definitely my favorite, and I hate how FFXIII-2 had so many downloadable content, but a much improvement to the first installment.
Thanks for this. This has helped get me straight and enjoy the story much more. It's really a shame, because the overall narrative and lore of this series is actually pretty interesting and thought provoking, but the story is told in the WORST WAY IMAGINABLE. The player has NO IDEA what's going on at almost any point. Even the dumbest and most ignorant characters in the world know much more about their circumstances than the audience. It's incredibly frustrating to have zero context almost all of the time, and it moves so fast that as soon as you're caught up you get lost again. I had to watch this video two times to the 7 minute mark to understand the opening hours. Now I do and it'll be much more enjoyable but...damn. Such a failure on narrative presentation on the writers' part. Anyway, thanks! I'm sure I'll be back to watch again soon.... >_>
Maybe if they didn’t name every important plot detail with a ‘Cie at the end and hardly explain the difference and force you to just kinda figure out, maybe i’d have a clue as to what fucking happened
...or maybe you're just not intelligent enough. Seeing how the FFX plot was incredibly bad - but very easy to understand - I think it's safe to say you're the problem, here.
I played through this game back when it came out, and literally didn't get it. I used to act like it was so dumb. But after watching this video, you changed my mind. This was very well done.
FF13 ending in a nutshell: "Oh noes! We need to go back to Cocoon to stop the Calvary from killing Orphan, cuz if Orphan dies, Cocoon will be destroyed! Oh hey, look, it's Orphan... LET'S KILL IT! Oh noes, we killed Orphan and Cocoon is now plummeting into the face of Gran Pulse! Oh wait, no, Fang and Vanille saved the day with Ragnarok powers. Phew, good thing they can apparently do that, or else we would've looked like huge assholes. It's okay everyone! WE SAVED YOU!" And thus ended the story of the most inept heroes in the history of fiction. The End.
I bet that part of story would have been a lot better had the characters acknowledged that they had no choice but to do this, and by some deus ex machina, are saved by some divine entity, which turned out to be Etro in the sequel, but that game did not need to happen in an attempt to explain things.
King Scheiber I think what *would* have saved the ending (somewhat) would be showing Lightning and the others who've been turned into C'ieth floating in a dark void, but a light (Etro) calls out to them from the darkness and actually gives them a new Focus; to save Cocoon by destroying Orphan. But even so, that would still require a sequel to properly contextualize, because Etro has never actually been mentioned in the game outside of a brief mention in a codex entry. Overall, FF13 is just a really poorly written game.
I'm sorry if I have to be that one person, but I find their reason to kill Orphan rather justifiable. They went back to Cocoon solely to stop the Cavalry and Barthandelus from killing Orphan and destroying Cocoon. But once they stopped them it quickly turned out that Orphan was in the same deal as the other Fal'Cie and wanted Cocoon destroyed, so the party had no choice but to stop him aswell. Now in my opinion I think the whole ordeal was handled very poorly: The characters would have been torn between the choice of killing Orphan or letting him live, which would lead to the same result: Dooming Cocoon. A lot of drama would have been thrown in. But instead we had the characters go "Screw what happens to Cocoon, let's kill him!" and a very rushed ending. And let's not forget that the ending was followed by two unnecessary sequels.
keffypoo Oh great, an FF13 fanboy. Yes yes yes, I know everything you're gonna say, about Etro's intervention and how she gave them a new Focus and blah blah blah, because I played through all the damn games, read the damn appendices and even listened to the damn prequel-interquel radio drama, so I do, in fact, know what actually happened at the end of the game. It doesn't matter. If you need to rely on ancillary works to properly contextualize your work and not make it a giant pile of nonsense, then it's bad writing. You don't get credit for things you didn't *actually* put in the game because, and this is the part where I might lose you... you didn't *actually* put it in the game.
1) I'm not a fanboy. Please find a valid argument, if you are capable of it. 2) No, you have no idea what I'm going to say, you're much too far below my level of intelligence to be able to do that.
That was so awesome. Im in the middle of playing 13-2 but havent played the first installment, the story was so captivating it makes me enjoy the 2nd part even more
Most of the people fail to understand that the gameplay on the FFXIII trilogy is tied to the story. For example, the linearity of FFXIII is based on the fact that no matter what the player wants to do and go to explore freely, your main character is tied to their fate to finish it's focus. The grand pulse part where you get more freedom is where the main characters start to realize that one has the power to choose how to live instead of being fully tied to a written fate. Also the game is not focused to a western audience, since most of the west tends to prefer a more powerless, kind of a crybaby and useless protagonist who starts to grow more powerful.
I've played games where other players made me left out of the game before, but I'd never played a game where the game itself made me feel left out of the game.
imo the plot , mythos and world building was amazing. what killed it was the awful dialog and writing, and of course, the cheap anime personalities of the characters
i was so pissed after i bought this day 1. I know some people like it. but the story was so bad. nothing really happened. Pluse l'Cie enemies of Cocoon was said so many times it got annoying. I was like i get it. Characters were so hard for me to understand. hell they had very little backstory.
Anyone else hungry to play Final fantasy games? I'm playing XII now (Fuck the haters in the immature childish butts), and even tho I played X, i loved XII. Mostly because of the MMO-ish gameplay lol.
+Chris Sorreda FFXII is criminally underrated. Too hard for the general FF fans to understand. For a game that big with no lags and bugs, that's something to be appreciated.
+Ndoelicious Too hard? Nu-uh. It's not too hard. It just requires fuck load of MMORPG style grinding and that's boring as fuck especially because the game was designed so that it will play itself. Wanna know how I spent all of my boss battles? Running in circles to regain enough MP to heal my useless companions!!! w00 what fun...
this is the first time i actually fully understand the plot of ff13 and im surprised to admit i actually dont hate it.
I finished 13 and 13-2 and didn't remember shit about the story until I watched this.
It's still convoluted as fuck
K
Alexander Zheng 🎲
The overall story isn't as bad as some people think I think, but the dialogue in some parts is not super good. Hope was one of the most annoying FF characters in my mind in the fist game. I rate this game a 7/10, but FFXII-2 IS a solId to me. I would say that 13-2 has some of the hardest to beat enemies in FF that you could try to beat. I think Both these games have good sountracks though.
I remember playing through this and not understanding a single thing about Fal'cie, L'cie, Celth, etc. until half way through the game because it started throwing words at you from the beginning. I appreciate that there wasn't some on the nose exposition, but this game was needlessly obtuse at times.
Yeah, the could of made the names a bit different. Everything sounds the same and confuses alot. A shame really....
Agreed. I think they could have used a different naming convention to make it easier to understand
*Drinks a shot every time I'Cie, L'Cie, Fal'Cie, A'Cie/D'Cie is mentioned*
....
*Dies from liver poisoning*
I made it about 15 hours with those obnoxious words and then just couldn't take it anymore.
Drew *Dies again, even with auto life active*
Yea I wanted to give this game a shot even though I've quit twice. I got to the first battle with the priest couldnt win and said fuck this game. I'm just watching the summary so I can move on to part two.
Super Iroquois Snake Use Lightning, Sahz, and Vanille with the Hero's Charge paradigm (Commando, Synergist, Medic). If all of Sahz's buffs are active, switch to Diversity (Commando, Ravager, Medic) so Sahz can hit too. Aim for the heads between the pauldrons and the main head and use blitz as Lightning. When only the central head remains, switch to Relentless Assault (Commando, Ravager, Ravager) and just do whatever to kill it. Switch to Diversity if you need to heal, or Hero's Charge if you need to reapply the buffs.
Tbh, the first fight with Barthandelus and the fight with Cid both gave me more trouble than the final boss, so if you farm properly and level up your gear, you won't have much problem through the rest of the game afterwards.
Super Iroquois Snake i believe u dont know that u need to destroy other part of him before attacking the main head. Destroy his other part of bodies then its become easy. I need to retry 3 times until i realize about this
"We have to save Orphan to save Cocoon!!"
"Nvm we killed him lol"
TBF They didn't know Eden and Orphan also wants the world to burn lol, but at least they did save the people of the Cocoon.
I think Final Fantasy really never suffers from its story but rather how it presented and game design.
yeah
Same problem with ffxv
@@dantemiles689 XV was awesome
@@zacatkinson3926 As someone who was hyped for it and followed its development for 15 years I can tell you no it's not.
1. Even after 15 years of development the story released incomplete then they released DLC to replace the missing story, they didn't release the last 2 DLCs so it remains incomplete.
2. The world is beautiful but its so huge that walking around it is boring. They said this was for realism but realistically speaking if I had the ability to teleport I would use it but Noct doesn't outside of combat.
3. Instead of feeling like a road trip with the boys it feels like a gay boy band simulator who talk about being models, taking selfies, and dresses.
4. Most of the characters are stale and boring hell his wife is the worst she's included so little that there's no reason to care about her.
5. Things that were promised were not in the final version.
6. Despite having a rich lore where a war is going on we get boring side quests like fetch stones, look at frogs and take pictures. They had the perfect building blocks for good side quests and still messed it up. Most of them are fetch quests and because it's boring to walk around all you get is boring.
7. It has a good story but it was told so poorly Most people wouldn't even notice
8. You can't just buy season pass you need to buy multiple DLC packs which is scummy.
The only thing I enjoyed was the combat, they had the perfect setup and 15 years to get it done and still failed
@@dantemiles689 It wasn't told poorly at all, the characters had personality, cmon dude all 4 of them were distinct
"Miraculously change back" "Inexplicably returned to life" top-tier storytelling, Square.
Square Enix’s writing has been going downhill after they hit their peak with CHRONO Trigger and FF7. The only exceptions being FF10,FF12 and the promise of what FF15 could’ve been if they had focused the whole story on the game and not tried to push some shit movie and an also shit anime that nobody wanted to fucking watch. I think FF15’s biggest problem was how much time the game and story spent in development, it got too big. If they had just focused and streamlined the narrative and only made a video game, what they’re good at! Then it would’ve been an incredible game
@@thedeepfriar745 the issue with final fantasy 15 is that it wasn’t even supposed to be 15.
It got rewritten and scraped, it used to final fantasy 13 versus
@@thedeepfriar745 also, even though final fantasy 14 is an mmo, it has one of the best final fantasy stories to date.
It is
@@thedeepfriar745 oh BS
I would re-play this game just for the sound track
Same the music is a master piece
Hamauzu did one flipping good job on this!
Incidently, I thought XIII-2 was even better somehow!
It isnt that bad just streched especially with the fact that the party pretty much meets up in like end of the second act , from pulse it's great that too they wasted a lot of time , they could have made it shorter by 10 hours or brought in new things. I'd say solid 8/10 a lot of people say it to be hard, honestly i thought it's one of the easiest FF
@@anantdhyani2882 i agree my man
yes, i love the sound track )after ff10 soundtrack btw), but hate the gameplay.
Snow's theme is one hell of a badass tune
I enjoyed playing this game but it was confusing at times. Your explanation made everything clear; it makes me want to play the game again!
I am not usually confused by complicated plots, even when most people are, but this game confused even me, and even after watching this video, I still don't understand.
that's because this video didn't do any analysis , its just a summary of what happened.
no, it's because the narrative in this game is ridiculously convoluted.
no kingdom hearts is compliacted but still most can understand it...this is just crack head storys
I thought it was easy to understand, there's only two factions. Cocoon and Pulse, now all you have to understand is the characters which are well developed and written. FFXII had more than I can even remember all their freakin names. (not that I dislike XII just making a point). Even X is harder to understand what with (spoilers) Tidus being real but not real and maybe not disappearing but maybe will when they destroy Sin.
No that's only if you don't play the game. The story is actually much simpler than people like to admit, Let me simplify it even further by removing the complicated terms that require people to read datalogs.
Once upon a time there was a "One God", this god created a planet and with the help of many other gods and demons.
Life was born in this planet and it evolved, however at one point in time this "One God" left the world and gods and demons clashed, gods created an artificial satelight above planet and took most people living on the planet, there.
While the people that were left on the surface, recieved the protection of demons and fought to keep themselves independant. After this separation, the planet had grown wild and creatures forther evolved into monsters, and survival depended on being strong, the weak becoming food for the strong or more evolved.
The gods instructed the humans living in their satelight to completely forget about the planet and that anything that comes from there represents nothing but death and misery.
And for centuries people learned to hate the planet and anything related to it.
Then after society had been estabilished, technology developed and empires had been founded on the satelight, the demons sent envoys to do a mission for them on the satelight. These envoys, go do their thing but while they are doing it the come in contact with a boy living in the satelight, that boy ends up being chosen as an envoy too but he has no way of knowing that, the envoys managed to complete what they had to do, and with their success they are left to rest but being crystalized, sadly the boy suffered the same fate, much to a a troubled father's dismay.
Elsewhere the govern had become corrupt and a couple of sister's had been torn apart by their social standing. The older sister choose to become a soldier and fought daily to feed the family of two, while the young sister was convinced by a common childhood friend to enter a rebel group and deal with whatever the government has been doing to certain people at the time(I'll have you play the game to see what this is all about, or the text will become much bigger).
In time, the troubled Father tries everything to save his kid, traveling around the world, he gets involved with the Older sister when she is sent to fight against the rebel group, only to find out what the government had been doing behind everyone's back, as soon as these people find each other, the demons once again move and choose them to become their envoys, at the same time the two envoys who were initially sent to the Satelight start moving again, and so the entire world becomes their enemy(they are hated servants of the demons after all)
This is pretty much what's happening in the story. Just change demons, envoys and Gods, with their respective Pulse Fal'cie, L'cie and Cocoon Fal'cie terms, and everything will become clear. Oh yeah and the "One God" is called the Maker, he made the Fal'cie
I'll stop here because more than this and i'll be a spoiler.
Let me just say that our characters are only puppets, losing their right to live the moment they were chosen, only to fight the puppets following the Fal'Cie on the other side, in a quest to purge the strings that bind them and earn their freedom. You don't actually need to read everything in the datalog, after you understand certain concepts most other terms can be understood by just following the story. There's even a moment in which Sahz the "Troubled Father" cuts Lightning short a mentioning that regardless of what term she uses to describe her function, she's still a soldier, which shows that these terms are easier to understand then people think.
I still don't understand a few things.
1. Why would the group want to kill Orphan once the influence of Barthandalus is gone?
2. How did the group change out of their Cieth forms in the final boss room?
3. What explanation is given as to why everyone but Fang and Vanile transformed out of crystals? Furthermore, why DIDN'T Fang and Vanile leave their crystal forms?
4. What did Barthandalus actually want to happen to Cocoon? Why would Barthandalus want Cocoon to be destroyed if he's bound to it?
5. How does anyone know what The Maker actually wants? What if the Fal'cie who wanted it to return DID destroy Cocoon in sacrifice, and The Maker still doesn't show up?
1. Because Orphan HIMSELF wanted to die, and leaving him alone would've just prolonged the mass-murder-suicide.
2. The same entity that forced Fang out of Ragnarok a thousand years ago intervened. The entity's identity is revealed in the sequel.
3. Said entity also freed the gang from crystal. But Fang and Vanille needed to stay within the crystal pillar to stop Cocoon from going "end of the dinosaurs" on Pulse.
4. As was already explained by Cid in the game, he and his fellow fal'Cie were dissatisfied with their existence, and killing everyone on Cocoon along with themselves would (they thought) summon their Maker who would reset everything.
5. The answers to that lie in the deeper mythology of the XIII series.
1. Because Orphan likely wouldn’t have let them go out of that room in the first place. He was going to force one of them to become Ragnarok no matter what because he wanted Cocoon gone.
2. The goddess of death Etro interfered from the unseen realm and changed all of them back because she took pity on them. Etro is known to have an affinity for humanity unlike the other gods Pulse and Lindzei.
3. The same happens at the end, Etro takes Lightning and everyone else out of crystal stasis as she felt bad for them. She likely didn’t do the same for Fang and Vanille because they were literally apart of the crystal pillar holding Cocoon up.
4. Barthandelus wanted to kill Orphan and drop Cocoon because all of the Cocoon Fal’Cie wanted to meet their “maker,” and they believed the only way to do that was go to the unseen realm where Etro was because the Fal’Cie thought that’s where the Maker fled to when they left. In order to get to the unseen realm, they needed millions of deaths to open Etro’s gate wide enough to go through themselves.
5. They don’t know what the Maker wants. It was out of desperation (at least that’s what I think) that Barthandelus orchestrated the destruction of Cocoon. The Cocoon Fal’Cie wanted to see their maker because they were tired of being stagnant and unable to grow like humans.
"the autobot brynhildr" lmao
Great video man, I took a break from the game for half a year, videos like these are really good to tell not only where the hell I left off but what the game's story is, and also to prevent players from starting from the beginning all over again.
As someone who followed the entire Kingdom Hearts series with its convoluted, time travelling, clone-sprouting plotline, and both understood and enjoyed it, I can vouche that this game's confusing plot is a product of its maker's failure in telling a decent story. Complicated stories have their own merits but stupidly complicated stories that end up writing themselves into a corner and have to five-way Deus Ex Machina themselves to have a moderately decent ending are just that, stupid.
Aguila701
Yes, among other things. How did that even happen? Was it their focus? If so who gave it to them and when? Didn't they wake up from a crystallized state once already? How come they became humans again after this to sacrifice themselves again in the sequels? Note that this is only about two of the characters and doesn't even touch on how idiotic the rest of the characters' stories are.
this game isn't even that complex, the whole story is told in a very shitty way.
This is one of my favourite FF game, that moment when you first step on Gran Pulse is really hard to forget
Thanks for this dude, I just bought Lightning returns on pc and I didnt fully finished 13 or 13-2 so I wanted to get a full recap and your video is perfect!
LRFFXIII is the worst in my opinion. I had it since it came out and i never finished it due to its horrible gameplay (by that i don,t mean the fights, but just the time limit, not allowing me to explore the world and pay attention to small details, and always having an impression of rushing)
I almost finished it but i went too fast and now i have days with nothing to do until the end. Unlike FFXIII where i have 200h of gameplay or FFXIII-2 where i have more than 500h, i only have like...24h on LRFFXIII... it's really a shame for the price it came out :/ The story is good, but gosh the gameplay ruined it for me
If you finished it, please tell me how the final fight goes, i'm curious about that, and i'd also be curious about your thoughts on it
I'm not a fan of turn based but I liked the way XIII delivered it, it was fast paced, you could play around with the camera and characters actually moved about during battle.
No one dislikes turn based
@@pogman3982 A lot of people dislike turn based. Look at the comments for Yakuza 7
@@pogman3982 I dislike turn based, I hate it actually that’s why I’ve never played any final fantasy before XV. And that’s also why I’m watching these recapitations of all the stories
Am I the only one that barely understood the story even though it was explained clearly. Seriously, final fantasy need to make things less complicated
Let me try and summarize. basically the group gets cursed brands to destroy the small planet in the sky by an evil god and are given a time frame in which to do it. The irony being that the evil god is supposed to be the people's protector, a priest. He wants to destroy the planet as a sacrifice to get the makers attention to rebuild the planets... I think. The group says uh uh. we're gonna save the small planet no matter what the cost but still ends up destroying the planet. Dwl 😂
Let me try and summarize. basically the group gets cursed brands to destroy the small planet in the sky by an evil god and are given a time frame in which to do it. The irony being that the evil god is supposed to be the people's protector, a priest. He wants to destroy the planet as a sacrifice to get the makers attention to rebuild the planets... I think. The group says uh uh. we're gonna save the small planet no matter what the cost but still ends up destroying the planet. Dwl 😂
Agreed. The number of terms that the writers ask players to keep track of right from the start is absurd.
Story- pure shite
@@michelhanson1500 thanks, that helps a lot. so cocoon is the sky planet right?
Oh my gosh, thank you so much Black Mage. The whole thing makes so much sense now! :)
It's really funny that this game's story is pretty decent, not bad at all actually, but the problem is they let that guy that directed FFX-2 be in charge of it...
i dont care what anybody says about ff13, i loved it. i loved the graphics, i loved lightning and i really loved the combat system. and for you cheeky bastards, you press more than just the X button.
+Aguila701 I guess some are into BEING crap.
I'm not a big fan of 13, but others have their own opinions
I agree! FFXIII gets alot of shit. I'm sorry FFXIII wasn't a carbon copy of games we've seen in the past. The plot was focused people thrown into a situation where they were basically guilty by association with an underlying theme that shapeshifters had infiltrated and manipulated human government. It was a huge conspiracy. You were on the run and in no way in that game did I feel like they could chill out and explore a town, when they tried it ended badly.
Final Fantasy XII was much more open than Final Fantasy XIII but I also feel like the story, gameplay and dialouge are dull as shit in XII by comparison. I loved the on the run feel within XIII and the game did open up and have a slew of endgame content. I wish the sequels never existed but that's about it
FFX and it's towns were linear as fuck and I love that game. After the first 18 hours and you get to pulse there are much more open areas and parts that branch out more than. You were just trying to survive, you were branded with dark powers and intended to be a destroyed against your will by beings trying to play puppet master. This is coming from a guy with about 400 hours on both FFX and FFXIII, respectively. Why am I comparing FFX to FFXIII? Because so many of the "problems" people have with XIII can be found in X.
The first few hours of FFVII is a few slashes and an occasional potion and bolt. Because the opening of FFXIII gets so much shit for it.
Again, sequels were absolute garbage because FFXIII had no cliff hanger, only because I was really attentive to that universe you actually find out that there were hundreds to thousands of Fal'Cie shapeshifters lodged within the human government aside from Barthandalus. They could've had humans and Fal'Cie continue to fight and obscure the whole concept of the purge around until that fight drew the attention of the creator like the Fal'Cie intended to do with Ragnarok. Buuut. They didn't.
To be completey fucking honest I like the original FFXIII more than FFX and I fucking love FFX. I couldn't compare FFVII to FFXIII until I see an HD remake, FFVII had more exploration but only because the world allowed it.
+Talon Marshall I loved the world and story of 13, I didn't dislike the combat but I got a little bored of cause you could just autobattle everything aside from boss fights if you wanted. I just find it funny people bash a game that is based on story soley on its combat. I don't think I've honestly played a FF I didn't like at all.
WonOneWun I loved FFXIII but it isn't perfect. The combat lacks depth, you won't get an argument out of me here. You can't switch who you control in battle, and if the party leader dies it's auto fail. Hate that, you can phoenix down the other two, but not yourself? It puts more focus on auto battling and once you get to pulse, grinding. I always grinded in Final Fantasy but it's more important there due to the lack of depth. There are things you can do, you can change the battle speed to slow, and set the default to abilities to auto battle in the settings to make up that time for actual selections. Paradigm switching and grinding are prevalent in it's in game content but the combat does lack depth. The sad thing is though, is that even though I can't command the other two in my party outside if paradigms they're smarter than most people I PUG with in FFXIV. Sad, but it damn sure is true.
Between the combat lacking depth, Hopes character, and Tetsuya Nomura's hypersexuslized costume design the game irks me.
I like chicks in miniskirts but the design is borderline porn star while the writing is completely devoid of any sexual dialouge to keep that teen rating. I also understand the complaints about linearity but FFX gets a free pass? Ugh.
i also want to add that i love the music.
I found this video helpful. For the first half of the game, I wasn't really clear on what this was about. Taking out all the in-between things, the hallways, the avalanche of tutorials, and the battles really made this clear. The plot is overwrought and hardly ever interesting. By the end, there's really no character to like or admire. Lightning is a strong character, surely, but she can't carry this heavy as Adamant drama on her own. I can't say I'd be interested in playing start to finish a second time.
Amazing yet again, thank you Black Mage
having a manual that comes with the game that gives a little introduction to each character is always essential
I have played this game more than twice but I never really understood the story with all the terminology.. hahaha. This video which is just few minutes was able to explain it all!! I wish this video has been available when ffxiii was initially released and that I was able to watch it so that I'd understand what these are all about.
Bless you. I got this game not too far off release and only picked it up again recently. Couldn’t make any sense of the jargon in the beginning and you summed it up perfectly
Damn, that was incredibly well done. I played this game and XIII - 2 years ago, and I'm about to start XIII - 3. This was a perfect recap. Thanks!
Hey man! Huge thanks for the well-done recap. I'm just about to finally start XIII-2, so I needed a story repeat. You did awesome, and I remembered why I always liked the game, despite the backlash it received online.
This is one of the most confusing and screwed up stories I've ever heard
u might be interested in kingdom hearts
I think that was the point
What about FF7? needs a lot of spin offs to understand the main plot XD
@@RubenRamirez666 What? how so? FF7 tells you everything you need to know for the story. The spinoffs (sequels and prequels) are just there to fill out the world more. Like Crisis Core, we didn't need it by any means, but it shows us what happened clearly rather than through memories. It also expands on who Zach is. We didn't need to know what kind of guy he was, but it adds to the experience of FF7.
@@RubenRamirez666 atleast not like kingdom hearts u need ps2,psp,ps4,3d,3ds,mobile devices to understands the story ,thank god we can watch the walktrough and cutscence in youtube . and guess what upcoming games on switch ! HAHAHAH
Thanks man! I'm about to play Final Fantasy XIII-2 for the first time and had already forgotten about most of the first part which I played like 5 or 6 years ago. This saved me a lot of time and was very well explained!
I actually loved how the story was presented, nothing was really dumbed down and exposited to the audience, because these characters live in this world, they don't need exposition. I also think that while it is a bit TOO ambiguous as to how, the very ending happening the way it does and sort of coming out of nowhere, adds a lot of mystery to Fang and Vanille.
That's fair. It's just something to consider as a developer. There shouldn't be a requirement of an in game dictionary, but as far as the characters in the game not needing exposition, that makes since.
Until reading that though, I hadn't really considered that it's usually common for you to play a character that is thrown into new world (FFX) or adopts a new and sudden role in that world that they never knew the ins and outs of, so it makes sense for someone to explain it for them and you as the player.
I know a lot of people didn't like the XIII Series for a lot different of reasons and some of those reasons don't make sense to me but I loved it. XIII is the first Final Fantasy game that I owned. I also love VII and X series and even though I screwed up on disc 4 I loved VIII too and I know a there are a lot of other Final Fantasy games are really good that I haven't played yet.
AGothicFairyTale IMHO, as long as you like it, that's the only opinion that matters when it comes to preferences. Games are about having fun, and some people take critical and commercial appeal far too seriously.
+AGothicFairyTale stupid question, was 13 the first one you played as well as owned? just curious
The first Final Fantasy Game I played was 10 and it was my friends.He brought it over one day and we played it for a while. 13 is the first one that I actually bought and completed.
Thats cool, everyone I know says their favorite FF game is the first they played, mine is FF4, that story just hits home for me, and also the first I played lol
I have a few favorites but I think 13 is my most favorite because of 13-2 and Lightning Returns.
I have never played this game (I have played every other FF since #6) but this video just made my head hurt.
this video made more sense than actually playing it. your awesome man
Watching this now makes my passion for Final Fantasy XIII come back to life, even if it never died. Your video explained very well the story, giving me more explanation about stuff i was slightly confused about, and it's also a great video to show to my friends who dare to ask me what is the story line of my favorite video game.
I don't understand why most people are ''spitting'' on that game. Ok it's nickname is Hallway Simulator and it's a very well found nickname, but I think they should focus more on the story. I mean, it's not the worst of the trilogy *cough* LRFFXIII *cough* and Square Enix did try something different. The characters are well made with a great backstory and motivation and it allowed me to be touched by what they lived, which is something missing in a lot of games. They respect the age and the origins of the characters, which is probably why everyone hates Hope, cause he acts like a normal teenager who had nothing to do in all that mess and who's mom died in the events, explaning why is is so ''weak'' compared to everyone else, aka an ex soldier, a guy leading a small ''resistance'' group, 2 girls from a land of savages beasts and an old man with nothing to lose.
i think most final fantasy fans were not ok with that change from square enix...and i really do think they should stop comparing the game between each others.
Again, thanks for your video :3
I just hate the language the game uses.... so many words with 'cie.... and "pulse"....
otherwise I think this is a decent game.
+Daniel L Yeah that was what drew me out of the game. I really enjoyed it, but found the story very hard to follow because of all these foreign terms. I didn't know what the sanctum was or what the hell an Orphan is until I watched this video. Still not sure if I understand lol.
+Sean M Sanctum was Cocoon government meant to put a human face on their actual captivity. Orphan was the fal'cie god granted the power to keep Cocoon running and direct the course of its existence. Bart was its agent that listened to the pain of Orphan and tried to have it killed, so that everyone on Cocoon would die (something normally against fal'cie programming to happen), so that the Gate of Etro would open and the Maker/Lindzei would notice this, who would then determine that this world is finally failure so it could be recreated (Orphan would be killed and Bart would have been alive in order to meet his Maker and join him in a New World).
It's not that bad if you break it down.
Fal'Cie: Powerful creatures with vast magical abilities whose job is to keep order in the world.
L'cie: Humans who are branded by a Fal'Cie, they are given increased magical and physical abilities in order to complete a focus (a mission) given to them by the Fal'Cie who branded them.
Cie'th: Former L'cie who failed or didn't complete their focus and turned into monsters who lash out at anyone that comes near them, human, L'cie or otherwise.
Cie'th stones: When a Cie'th is left alone long enough, it eventually loses its strength and power and turns into a stone, with its focus still branded into it. Other L'cie can access these stones and choose to complete the Cie'th focus for them, allowing them to crystallize.
Pulse is the original planet made by the creator on which the Fal'cie and the humans originally lived. When the humans started warring among each other too much, the Fal'Cie in a desperate effort to keep control over them made Cocoon and took most of the people up there. Eventually, after many centuries, people forgot what Pulse really was and it became like a legend to them, as the Cocoon Fal'cie continuously brainwashed the people of Cocoon into believing that anything from Pulse was the enemy and needed to be destroyed.
I don't mind with term like fal'cie and l'cie. What confuse me is they use many common word (Focus, Cocoon, Cavalry, Sanctum, Orphan, etc) and use it as their own term. So every dialogue is ambiguous to me
@@kleberson777 that, my friend, is called localization sickness. If you play in Japanese, most names are better.
I really enjoyed the FF13 Trilogy.
Glad to know I got the gist of the story and the terminology near enough, yet your video served to clarify certain things. Thnx a bunch.
I wish they hadn't made the story of this game so complicated to understand.
It’s really not though
@@BigBoss-sh2jx people are just dumb asses. You literally see people say the entirety of the Witcher series is amazing but it’s story sucks ass until Witcher 3
Excellent job. Loved this game. You made it make way more sense!
I love this trilogy so much!! It is so engaging!!! Lightning is hot!!!
*"Inexplicably" is the RIGHT word, indeed.*
Thanks for this. I completed the game and I didnt really understand the entire story...
Thank you for this very in-depth explanation of what happened in Final Fantasy XIII. I had played it about a month or two ago and I was mostly confused as to what was going on. I could understand the obvious things as they happened but not the things that required more in depth thought and analysis.
Makes absolutely no sense. The Game not your video.
Your Video better told the Story than the game itself in 50+ hours.
It's probably the shittiest way to present a story but if you didn't read the datalog then the story will make no sense whatsoever because it assumed you've read them and know immediately what fal'cie and L'cie are and how the government structure works etcetera etcetera. So the story does make perfect sense but this is presented in the worst way possible.
The thing with the data Log is true which shows that they fucked up but the story has plot holes, deep plot holes. I'm just saying ragnarok, the power of friendship at the end of the game which is so dumb and makes the howl crystal thing obsolete and the most fucked up plot hole is being adressed by Cid Raines by himself and calls deus ex machina. This is bad storytelling at its finest. This is a bad plot. It has some nice ideas but nothing more. And I can't believe that the author worked several years on that story.
Yeah I see your point. I guess I just overlooked the whole "best friends save the world" thing because that is in almost everything.
The best battle music in Final Fantasy franchise
Even just hearing Hope described in this video makes me remember how much I hate him.
Thank you so much for this! I've been playing the game over 2 years and I just beat the final boss and was kinda confused on the whole Ragnorak concept! Thanks for the help!
I honestly was more confused with FF12's story, this game was honestly extremely fun and I enjoyed the story along the way. It got really good when I was able to explore in Grand Pulse and do side quests as well. This game gets so much hate but I thought it was a step in the right direction diverting from the previous RPG era. Just my opinion, as we all are entitled to our own. I'm super pumped for the FF7 remake and XV as well!
Underrated by morons are retards, so who cares. It was a success in showing how extremely fast-paced, challenging and driven a RPG can be. That's why this franchise is so much above the rest: they try something new with every title, and actually take the risk of not pleasing the masses - including their own fanbase - all for the sake of always making better games.
You're crap. Hope people with actual taste will present themselves when square's next big rpg hits the scene.
I agree, I think most the hate is undeserved. Every once in a while ideas latch on and gullible ppl latch onto it and band together as if it's some sort of tribal bonding ritual. Unfortunately FFXIII was caught in that as the people that enjoy XIII seem to really enjoy it and the people that don't seem to all repeat the same things in the same way. I guess I could hope for a better world where more people think for themselves and judge content for it's own worth and if they don't like it then fine, but at least give a non regurgitated reason. People hate some things just to try to score cool points and it has been that was for FF for a while now and it's really dumb. It's like that with a lot of popular game companies by default now too, it's sad. No matter if the game is good or not, hating became in and cool. Which is idiotic. At least it makes it easy to spot ppl I don't care to associate with and it's on the way out.
@keffypoo the only thing i'll disagree is that Final Fantasy is above the rest. Star Ocean, the Chrono series(Yes I loved Cross too), the Mana series(both Secret of Mana and Seiken Densetsu III which I'd do anything to have a remake or a port released here, including Legend of Mana and Sword of Mana), Tales of series, Suikoden(on of the best Konami titles ever), Wild Arms series, the classic Phantasy Star, and Dragon Quest. Every one of this series is a serious competitor for best J-RPG, even the poor Breath of Fire, which was murdered by Capcom for no reason and Grandia series which died out for, once again, no reason.
As someone who picked up the FF series with VII and couldn't continue past XIII (getting older, having a family, etc) I don't have time to enjoy the games or have time to watch full play-throughs. I've made it through your whole recapitation series and look forward to when you continue and do others, so I can at least know what happened!!! Keep it up!
XIII's biggest failure (bigger than even the linearity), was the god awful story that just collapsed in on itself multiple times. By the ending of the game it's so convoluted and ridiculous that I just didn't care about anything - everything just happens because 'reasons' and there are no grounded rules to the universe. There's no threat or sense of urgency because the game keeps introducing ridiculous concepts that negate most of what came beforehand.
+Matthew Etter ... none are nearly as linear as XIII, even it's 2 sequels.
If you think XII, VII or even the ps1 entries are linear... then I doubt you've played them.
+Matthew Etter
what are you even talking about? XIII is easily the most linear of the series. You're asking if he knows what linear means when you clearly don't. The storyline itself is linear in pretty much every ff game, that's not what we're talking about.. obviously.
I was just about to type this. The story was way too out there and became deluded and confusing but still moved forward without giving the player a full understanding of what was supposed to be happening. I beat the game and didn't even remember why I was fighting the final boss
true , and dude dont reason with anyone who likes XIII trilogy they are new fans to FF and most likely havent tried any FF .. FF wasnt that linear until XIII came to the screen all fans went gay for that chick lightning
though, all of the fans who went through FFI to FFXII will see none was compliantly linear .. they say '' i love who complains about FFXIII being too linear when FFX was linear too but the big difference is so clear in between the two even FFX became 2nd best selling after FFVII :/
I'd say 'don't try to reason with people who bash FFXIII', they are always far too clueless about the FF series and RPG in general to have a valid opinion.
All FF games are strictly linear, FFXIII just did away with the hypocrisy of it and integrated the plot into the direction, which was brilliant and gave the game a feeling of pursuit a lot of previous games (FFVII, for instance) should have had.
I have played all FF games since the late 1980s (in their times), and FFXIII remains one of my favourite. Trying to use experience as an argument is as empty and shallow as all your other arguments. You probably started playing FF games with FFVII or FFX, and claim you know more than other players, when you know just as little.
Sales numbers as an argument is the nail in the coffin of your pitiful and pathetic tongue-lashing. FFX is probably the worst title in the series, and is only liked by people who were children in 2001, and cannot take off nostalgia glasses. FFX got nothing right: bad plot (the ending saved it a bit), shallow, cliché, forgettable characters, awful and dull gameplay, terrible, uninteresting growth system. Four game aspects FFXIII did much, _much_ better than FFX.
I love it when people try to bash one of the best games in the series citing one of the worst. Opinions are cool, but there are facts which ignorant players such as you seem to love ignoring.
It's crazy how one needs that video for FFFXIII's plot and worlbuilding to make more sense.
even with all the problems of the 13 series i still enjoy the trilogy a lot
This fucking game's story is so convoluted. Can someone explain to me why Squeenix thought it would be a great idea to throw non-existent words at me and expect me to understand what they mean when I barely knew anything about the world's history and culture?
Thank you for this recap!!! I absolut love this game. When I played it many years ago, I was left with the impression that the plot had a deeper meaning. And I would like to share my pov and personal interpretation of this intricated storyline.
After much though, I think this game main theme is about "exiting the matrix". Much like the movie, the characters in ffx iii are trapped in an artificial construction, a matrix if you will, build and designed by non human entities to enslave and usurp their will power.
Those who dare to wake up, in the game through contact with non human entities that are not necessarily aligned with the ones that created the Coccon matrix( though it seems at times they are all interconnected) are persecuted and when finally reach their goal, they misteriously apear in a another place, or dimesion, the demonized land of Pulse, as they were already there all long. But only "resting" in crystal form. The same goes for the movie. Neo leaves the matrix and unffortunately wakes up in a distopyan reality. In lighter note, the characters in the game wake in a unnexplored world that seems ready to start anew.
The fact that the characters wake on Pulse as they were already there kinda makes me think of Pulse as their original world or perhaps an after life, an life after the illusion is over.
I also cannot stress how the fact the famale characters "save the world" represents, to me, the ascencion of the supressed female energy. In Fritoj Capra's book "The turning point" he says that the non acknwoledment of the dualist nature of mankind and our masculine and female energies presented all around in nature are the leading cause to societal crisis.
The overvaluation of masculine enegy and the supression of female atributes are seem in our destructive and individualist ways of life and also in our disconection with nature and with ourselves. He predicts that a turning point for this perceptual crisis would be the ascencion of female energy and the balance of both manifestations. Which simbolically happens in tha game when Vanile and Fang become Ragnarok.
It May seem like in reading too much in this but I find that this interpretation holds many connections to what we are experiencing as a human collective lately. Even the idea that non human entities are pulling the strings in our world through money and religion can be made. Whistleblowers, Ronald Bernard and Karen Hudes, both were big players in the financial system, share so much about this.
It honestly took years and some soul searching to come to these interpretations. I find this game fascinanting and if art imitates life, than this game sure did it.
"no! we refuse to destroy cocoon! we will save it!"
"let's kill the thing powering the city keeping it floating in the sky!"
"Yea!"
God this was a wonderful trilogy
Then I suppose we don't agree lol
LOL
+Samanosuke1138 I agree with you sir! I loved these games. Square did something different, and I loved it. I got 9 ways to play turn based combat, 10 and 13 are just creative ways to tell a compelling story in the Final Fantasy Universe :)
Very compelling storytelling. Also, what most people don't understand is that virtually all final fantasy games were linear. extremely linear. The presentation is different, but still the same game and if it were in a 3rd person perspective, it would play the same too. Heck most of the Side Missions didn't even happen until Pre Final boss anyway. This game did nothing different really than any other game in the franchise other than put the side missions in the post game so you can enjoy the narrative as its meant to be. I mean, if I was going to turn into a C'ieth, I wouldn't be dicking around in Taejin's Tower or some crap lol..I would be trying to complete my focus.
+fgeo97 GuitarVids I don't know if you're trying to troll me or what, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say you aren't so I can give you a well worded response. And it will likely be TL, but worth reading.
To inform you, my "research" is exhaustive, but I'll really only note that the most important bits include that I have played and completed (minimum 2x) all Final Fantasy numbered titles, save for II, III (at the final dungeon), XI, and XIV. Actually, I'm currently in replay of IV, V, and LRFFXIII, so, to make a harsh statement without knowing anything about me, or my argument for the game, was kinda dumb on your part. Moving on, when I stated that virtually all games are linear like XIII, the keyword was VIRTUALLY. I'm well aware of XII's very open world approach similar to that of an MMO. But because of that, the story suffered vastly and the characters came off as very bland and lacking any real depth (Vaan is who the game "centers around" and he's not even the main character for crying out loud!!)
I'm glad you find it hilarious that people would defend 13, but that's because people actually enjoyed it. Just because you didn't doesn't give you the right to take apart their analysis of the game, but I digress. So, my "insult..." Ok lets look at Final Fantasy VII, a game so revered, it's getting a full on remake (which, by the way, looks exactly like FF 13 and from what I can see will play exactly like it, and be episodic like it.) Flow of the game in a nutshell:
Mako reactor-sector 7-mako reactor-sector 5-sector 6-sector 7-shinra building-kalm-chocobo farm (first technical sidequest if you farm the money to rent a stable and get the shitty chocobos that are available at the time)-mine-junon-costa del sol-juno-corel-gold saucer-cosmos canyon-nibelheim-rocket town-back to gold saucer-temple-city of the ancients. Disc 1. This is a very linear storytelling path. You acquire vehicles to get you to and from places from time to time with very little room for deviation as it slows down the narrative. Most every Final Fantasy does not open up the deviation paths until the end of the game when you just have to fight the final boss. Chrono Trigger was also like this and it has a ridiculous amount of side quests. Final Fantasy 6 is also very linear. 4 is very linear. They give you just enough to progress the narrative, but I don't know what I'm talking about.
Now I'm going to break down your points:
1. Hallway-typically when you walk through a city or an alley and when the game is presented in a behind the NPC 3rd person view, it is perceived as a hallway. This is not relevant as it is common in a plethora of games.
2. The Characters-this is subjective. This may be a reason for YOU to not like the game, but not a reason to dismiss others.
3. Every FF is linear. I clearly stated most. But if you follow your own advice and DO YOUR RESEARCH, you'll clearly see what I'm talking about.
4. You don't have to auto-battle....you don't. so there's not much else to say about that. It will make the game more challenging, but you don't have to auto-battle. You can pick commands like any other FF game.
5. The story fits the hallway. Presentation is everything. This game is presented in the way that say....Action films are presented in theaters. Your character is always on the run. No time for anything, because they have something to do that's time sensitive. the story fits the presentation.
6.The battle system is better than 12. That also is subjective. While I loved 12's battle system, by the end of the game, i was just using the left analog stick to run around and my characters did the fighting for me. I was just watching the movie...so you are way more active in it in 13 and it requires constant tweaks for every battle and every situation. So I give the crown to 13 in this match up.
Side note, FF10 is a hallway but you see it from an isometric point of view. There is stuff to do on the side........... at the end of the game when you get the Airship because...story matches presentation. And the battle system is ATB/TB hybrid....to say its the best is subjective also....so not a relevant fact or a reason to tear down my comment...
k. bye.
The ending really never made sense to me. It was so out of nowhere. Well yeah, it was explained in the sequel, but was there any buildup to that explanation?
I think there was. The original idea and my headcanon is that the maker actually returned trough the gate and saw all the chaos his Fal'Cie did and decided to fix it by ressurecting the L'cie back to normal.
AH THIS IS BEAUTIFUL, SUBSCRIBED RIGHT AWAY :D
Palomporum.I believe that's referencing Palum and Porum from IV?
You're right!
If i recall correctly.
The first part where you say it is on granpulse its actually cocoon since "no one" lives on Granpulse except the outcasts.
2018 can we get a FF13-FF Lightning Returns, Remastered onto one Disc. The mythology of this series is capable of being one of the greatest of all time.
Just needs to be executed right.
Who's gonna go through and edit every instance of them using the word l'CIe or fal'Cie and replace it with something that's not obnoxious sounding?
I think what threw me off the most is that all of the areas in Cocoon; the coastal town of Bhodum, the crystal shores, the sky portions in the Palamecia, everything, are all located INSIDE the sphere of Cocoon, which is floating in the sky above Pulse and even if you read the datalogs, this is never made clear. It is basically like living inside of a localized moon.
I only understood the story with this,thanks
2021 and I am watching this. Thank you for this video
Man I really liked this game and now I finally have the time to play XIII-2.
Why did Final Fantasy stories after X all become so damn convoluted.
Politics of Vahn in FFXI, Politics of FFXIII with Lcie, Falcie, Brands, Cieth, Politics of FFXV, Weird time travel in Kingdom Hearts 3 and 2.
Exactly. I miss when heroes and villains have simple and clear motivations for doing what they do. Like in FFX when the whole point of Yuna and her party's pilgrimage was to destroy big baddie in the sky. Or Sephiroth in FF7 summoning meteor so he can resurrect and meet his mommy while Cloud's party tries to stop him from casting said Meteor.
lol the Autobot Brynhildr...nice!
mark o Autobots...ROLLOUT! Brynhildr was the reject lol
I’m so confused why the fuck does Dysley help them so much. I feel like they would’ve never succeeded if he stopped giving them airships and advice
I like the story it's not confusing at all
Yeah. Wants you ascertain it, it's really. It throws you in the shit in this giant metropolis. The political manipulation and shape shifting demi-god theme is actually really good.
FFXIII gets alot of shit. I'm sorry FFXIII wasn't a carbon copy of games we've seen in the past. The plot was focused people thrown into a situation where they were basically guilty by association with an underlying theme that shapeshifters had infiltrated and manipulated human government. It was a huge conspiracy. You were on the run and in no way in that game did I feel like they could chill out and explore a town, when they tried it ended badly. It was a futuristic Utopia, the fact that shopping was done on kiosks, AKA online didn't kill the immersion for me.
Final Fantasy XII was much more open than Final Fantasy XIII but I also feel like the story, gameplay and dialouge are dull as shit in XII by comparison. I loved the on the run feel within XIII and the game did open up and have a slew of endgame content. I wish the sequels never existed but that's about it
FFX and it's towns were linear as fuck and I love that game. After the first 18 hours and you get to pulse there are much more open areas and parts that branch out more than. You were just trying to survive, you were branded with dark powers and intended to be a destroyed against your will by beings trying to play puppet master. This is coming from a guy with about 400 hours on both FFX and FFXIII, respectively. Why am I comparing FFX to FFXIII? Because so many of the "problems" people have with XIII can be found in X.
The first few hours of FFVII is a few slashes and an occasional potion and bolt. Because the opening of FFXIII gets so much shit for it.
Again, sequels were absolute garbage because FFXIII had no cliff hanger, only because I was really attentive to that universe you actually find out that there were hundreds to thousands of Fal'Cie shapeshifters lodged within the human government aside from Barthandalus. They could've had humans and Fal'Cie continue to fight and obscure the whole concept of the purge around until that fight drew the attention of the creator like the Fal'Cie intended to do with Ragnarok. Buuut. They didn't.
To be completey fucking honest I like the original FFXIII more than FFX and I fucking love FFX. I couldn't compare FFVII to FFXIII until I see an HD remake, FFVII had more exploration but only because the world allowed it.
Don't Ctrl-C Ctrl-V your posts. I was tired enough of seeing it the first time.
@SNBeast tbh he has a well written comment, letting more people see it isn't a bad thing. No one is forcing your poor tired eyes to read it.
A beautiful story! I'm starting now FFXIII-2... :P Probably the story is getting better! :D Thanks for uploading it!
That was so god damn confusing! Like I'm at a loss haha...I could imagine if I played the game. There are too waaaay out there names to get straight. The last good Final Fantasy was 10 in my opinion but I'm old, so prob just me.
I wished they allowed more interaction with the environment in this linear game. FFX allowed us to do that which honestly fooled me to being a linear game. The story in each chapter could've been more in depth, instead we get an opening/ending story and in between a hallway to travel on. What was Szah's story anyways? FFXIII-Lightning Returns is definitely my favorite, and I hate how FFXIII-2 had so many downloadable content, but a much improvement to the first installment.
I still don't know what the fuck is going on even after this video.
Can't say I disagree. Final Fantasy XV is much better but that's not saying much because the narrative is still crap.
I love the bit where Lightning trains Hope. Gameplay-wise that section was a bit crap but the character development there was great.
Thanks for this. This has helped get me straight and enjoy the story much more. It's really a shame, because the overall narrative and lore of this series is actually pretty interesting and thought provoking, but the story is told in the WORST WAY IMAGINABLE. The player has NO IDEA what's going on at almost any point. Even the dumbest and most ignorant characters in the world know much more about their circumstances than the audience. It's incredibly frustrating to have zero context almost all of the time, and it moves so fast that as soon as you're caught up you get lost again.
I had to watch this video two times to the 7 minute mark to understand the opening hours. Now I do and it'll be much more enjoyable but...damn. Such a failure on narrative presentation on the writers' part.
Anyway, thanks! I'm sure I'll be back to watch again soon.... >_>
Barthandelus IS in truth the Falcie Etro? This part of the story I couldn't unravel.
Holy shit. Thanks for this. I never really understood this game until now.
Maybe if they didn’t name every important plot detail with a ‘Cie at the end and hardly explain the difference and force you to just kinda figure out, maybe i’d have a clue as to what fucking happened
My brain hurts
...or maybe you're just not intelligent enough. Seeing how the FFX plot was incredibly bad - but very easy to understand - I think it's safe to say you're the problem, here.
keffypoo X's plot was good and makes sense so does XII FF8 had a trash storyline though
@@keffypoo X's story was good but nothing crazy. I agree it's not Square Enix that's the problem
They could have chosen another name.... but no it must be I'Cie, L'Cie, Fal'Cie, A'Cie/D'Cie.
Square Enix intentionally fucks with our brain.
This story is like a group of 5 nerdy tweens finishing a creative writing assignment the night before it’s due.
I played through this game back when it came out, and literally didn't get it. I used to act like it was so dumb. But after watching this video, you changed my mind. This was very well done.
FF13 ending in a nutshell:
"Oh noes! We need to go back to Cocoon to stop the Calvary from killing Orphan, cuz if Orphan dies, Cocoon will be destroyed! Oh hey, look, it's Orphan... LET'S KILL IT! Oh noes, we killed Orphan and Cocoon is now plummeting into the face of Gran Pulse! Oh wait, no, Fang and Vanille saved the day with Ragnarok powers. Phew, good thing they can apparently do that, or else we would've looked like huge assholes. It's okay everyone! WE SAVED YOU!"
And thus ended the story of the most inept heroes in the history of fiction. The End.
I bet that part of story would have been a lot better had the characters acknowledged that they had no choice but to do this, and by some deus ex machina, are saved by some divine entity, which turned out to be Etro in the sequel, but that game did not need to happen in an attempt to explain things.
King Scheiber I think what *would* have saved the ending (somewhat) would be showing Lightning and the others who've been turned into C'ieth floating in a dark void, but a light (Etro) calls out to them from the darkness and actually gives them a new Focus; to save Cocoon by destroying Orphan. But even so, that would still require a sequel to properly contextualize, because Etro has never actually been mentioned in the game outside of a brief mention in a codex entry.
Overall, FF13 is just a really poorly written game.
I'm sorry if I have to be that one person, but I find their reason to kill Orphan rather justifiable. They went back to Cocoon solely to stop the Cavalry and Barthandelus from killing Orphan and destroying Cocoon. But once they stopped them it quickly turned out that Orphan was in the same deal as the other Fal'Cie and wanted Cocoon destroyed, so the party had no choice but to stop him aswell. Now in my opinion I think the whole ordeal was handled very poorly: The characters would have been torn between the choice of killing Orphan or letting him live, which would lead to the same result: Dooming Cocoon. A lot of drama would have been thrown in. But instead we had the characters go "Screw what happens to Cocoon, let's kill him!" and a very rushed ending.
And let's not forget that the ending was followed by two unnecessary sequels.
keffypoo Oh great, an FF13 fanboy. Yes yes yes, I know everything you're gonna say, about Etro's intervention and how she gave them a new Focus and blah blah blah, because I played through all the damn games, read the damn appendices and even listened to the damn prequel-interquel radio drama, so I do, in fact, know what actually happened at the end of the game. It doesn't matter. If you need to rely on ancillary works to properly contextualize your work and not make it a giant pile of nonsense, then it's bad writing. You don't get credit for things you didn't *actually* put in the game because, and this is the part where I might lose you... you didn't *actually* put it in the game.
1) I'm not a fanboy. Please find a valid argument, if you are capable of it. 2) No, you have no idea what I'm going to say, you're much too far below my level of intelligence to be able to do that.
I played this game years ago back in the xbox360 and never full understood it. Thank you mate.
Not a good game overall, but damn if I don't love that ending. I really wish the entire thing was that quality.
Thanks! Even after beating the game twice, I still wasn't sure what was going on. This was a very good summary!
I love the battle system in this game, fastpaced and fun. The story is the big problem in this game. Setting, music, visuals are amazing...
That was so awesome. Im in the middle of playing 13-2 but havent played the first installment, the story was so captivating it makes me enjoy the 2nd part even more
The #1 reason I could not beat FF13: Snow
this was an amazing recap thank you so much
Most of the people fail to understand that the gameplay on the FFXIII trilogy is tied to the story. For example, the linearity of FFXIII is based on the fact that no matter what the player wants to do and go to explore freely, your main character is tied to their fate to finish it's focus.
The grand pulse part where you get more freedom is where the main characters start to realize that one has the power to choose how to live instead of being fully tied to a written fate.
Also the game is not focused to a western audience, since most of the west tends to prefer a more powerless, kind of a crybaby and useless protagonist who starts to grow more powerful.
That doesn't make the game fun.
@@OraNui depending on people's tastes
I've played games where other players made me left out of the game before, but I'd never played a game where the game itself made me feel left out of the game.
imo the plot , mythos and world building was amazing. what killed it was the awful dialog and writing, and of course, the cheap anime personalities of the characters
This game is so freaking great!!!
I would love to see a ffxiii HD remaster on the ps4 with all the 3 games and novels
yeah you're right... unfortunelly, I would love to see that though :/ I really love the trilogy
Thanks! Just what I needed.
i was so pissed after i bought this day 1. I know some people like it. but the story was so bad. nothing really happened. Pluse l'Cie enemies of Cocoon was said so many times it got annoying. I was like i get it. Characters were so hard for me to understand. hell they had very little backstory.
This answers so much. But now I have questions I never thought of before.
Anyone else hungry to play Final fantasy games? I'm playing XII now (Fuck the haters in the immature childish butts), and even tho I played X, i loved XII. Mostly because of the MMO-ish gameplay lol.
+Chris Sorreda FFXII is criminally underrated. Too hard for the general FF fans to understand. For a game that big with no lags and bugs, that's something to be appreciated.
+Ndoelicious Too hard? Nu-uh. It's not too hard.
It just requires fuck load of MMORPG style grinding and that's boring as fuck especially because the game was designed so that it will play itself. Wanna know how I spent all of my boss battles? Running in circles to regain enough MP to heal my useless companions!!!
w00 what fun...
+Chris Sorreda Yeah, FFXII has one of my favorite plots of all the Final Fantasy games.