Video games in a nutshell

I have long enjoyed the Final Fantasy series. They’re generally charming, with a robust cast of characters, a sweeping storyline, and incredible cut scenes.

Final Fantasy XIII is beautiful. I cannot argue with that at all. I only imagine it took ridiculously long to animate and meticulously sculpt all of the environments. But anyway, the meat of this post:

To preface my opinions–I’m about 8 hours into the game, so I can’t really speak for what may lie beyond that.

The first 6 hours of so of the game has been trying. Not so much in the “I’m having difficulty understanding” but more so in the “…what…?” sense. The characters are flimsy and poorly developed and the pacing of the story and the exploration are extremely wonky.

I’ve come to realize through the consumption of anime and JRPGs that there’s a boiling point for me. Like that MTV show that tests the limits of random people, I can only handle so much melodrama and needless badass slow-mo flipping before I shut down. Japanese people (God love them) have a tendency to push my buttons with their dramatic works in video games. I don’t like JRPGs as much as I do North American-produced ones (for the most part).

I think my biggest frustration thus far has been the story.

It begins in media res, so we see Lightning (the badass protagonist) and plucky sidekick Sazh (the obligatory comic relief) riding a ship to an undetermined location. We know nothing about the characters, what’s going on, or the setting itself. Because the world in which they live is so rich and relatively different than ours, beginning the story in the middle is not nearly as effective as it was in, say, Uncharted 2.

There are so many unanswered questions, so little character development and the player feels so removed from the actual plot that it’s difficult to empathize with the characters. Combine that with terrible voice acting and enough melodrama to make the Golden Girls cry, and you could imagine why I was ready to pack up and ship out.

Everything is just so linear. The game progresses by revealing bits and pieces of how to play the game, which isn’t unusual–tutorials are a great way to get players familiarized with the content.

BUT THIS IS DIFFERENT. 8 hours in I’m still getting schooled by the game on how to do things that would be much more effective to explain early on.

Random battles are less random this time around because you can actually see and avoid your enemies, but it doesn’t change the fact that all I’ve done so far is watch cutscene after cutscene only peppered with strings of button-mashing battles.

I’m happy to report that’s changing.

Well, that and I hate Hope less now.

But I still hate Vanille with a passion that can only be described as religious zealotry. She is the single most grating female character I’ve ever played. If you made a drinking game that required a drink every time she squealed in dialogue, you’d be wasted after just a few cutscenes.

I think once I finish this game, I’m going to post a roast of the characters, but I’ll hold my tongue for now.

I’d just like to point out one thing: Why do their names SUCK? Who was the genius writing stupid words on fortune-cookie-sized slips of paper and drawing them out of a hat?

We have:

• Lightning
• Snow
• Fang
• Hope
• Vanille (Vanilla – a + e = German for Vanilla)

Only Sazh has an original name. Everyone else was named because some stupid noun or state of being was close to hand when they were straining for names. Sazh got the chocobo-infested afro instead. Guess even he couldn’t dodge the bullet on that one.

Sleep time. More to come.