Reviews VideoGame / Final Fantasy XIII

Also, Vanille is clearly the main character and should have been portrayed as one.

Vanille wasn't portrayed as the main character = Vanille is the main character = Vanille should have been portrayed as the main character. Flawless logic.

Is it sad that's one of this game's lesser problems?

Couple of problems

The Flashbacks and the 13 Days arc are completely unnecessary. They should instead be presented from the start, and fully interacted.

That would spoil things in the story, like Vanille being a l'cie, knowing Serrah, etc.

Any information not found in-game is found in the Datalog instead, and said information barely makes an impact in the game in the first place.

Then the game would force you to read the Datalog to understand what was going on, like watching a movie where an important element was shown but not explained and you then have to read the book to be able to understand, that's why it's more about side information that serves more as trivia.

Snow and Serah’s relationship is barely developed, which hurts the story as it is one of the reason why the story exists.

It is explored in the 13 days, the only place where it can be since a major plot point is her turning into crystal

Vanille’s persona is annoying and childish, which does not help make her endearing. Also, Vanille is clearly the main character and should have been portrayed as one.

Just because she sometimes takes the role as narrator doesn't mean she's the main character, I didn't think she had any more development or characterization than the other character, they all had about the same, except for maybe Sazh.

Sazh is easily the most likable and believable character in the game and his story arc is while appealing, is sadly cut off too quickly.

Well I don't really disagree with this one, just think that he became more popular than the writers thought he would. He's much older than the rest of the team and despite his comic relief persona, a lot more mature. Hope went after Snow for half of the game even after he was told and he himself admitted that he just wanted someone to release his anger on, Sazh had a rage fit after finding it out it was Vanille's fault his son became a l'cie but accepted that killing her wont bring him back

Interesting review. For a long time now I've felt the problems with FFXIII were pacing issues and little things that built up in the subconscious and turned people off after a while (like the running animation! Worst running animation ever, it's ridiculously immersion breaking somehow and the way it's animated and the sound effects make it feel there's a layer of gel between the character and the floor. My very first impression of the game (after, this copied FFVII homage looks pretty cool) was, wow the running animation sucks)

And you do a very good job at picking out some of those nitpicks, particularly the mythology and the datalog.

On the other hand, I find myself disagreeing with a lot of your character assessments. Lightning had a good arc and it wasn't so much about her relationship in the military but her relationship with people. Her relationship with hope was great and I feel it was more on her side than Hopes. and she of all people had the biggest change from how she was at the start. Her obstinancy was a driving force of a lot of the dilemmas in the last game.

Snow and Serah was fair game, I think that did probably hurt the story a bit in one of those subconscious ways. We saw the length Snow went to save her but in our minds we only really understood that as something about his character. Given your first character bulletpoint it's amusing that the relationship between Lightning and Serah was much better and further developed.

Equally I think it's harsh to denounce Hope and Snows story as cliche, particularly here on TV Tropes where one of the main lessons it's not about originality or finding new ideas, but presenting them in the right way. A cliche is when people don't think about those ideas and I don't think that's present here. Both characters were well developed enough to give them real understanding of the problem between them and the climax of that arc was pretty darn gripping. It even fits nicely with Hope and Lightnings arc as Hope is forced to grow up faster than people have right to ask him.

Sazh, yep. Fantastic story arc and surprisingly dark. Another pairing that really hit off and Fang again is pretty accurate but in truth I cared enough about everyone else that I just put her to one side.

The point with Vanille though is probably you're most interesting observation of all. In most senses she's the main character and she's the narrator and she's the centre of the climax. But she has less personality and doesn't dominate the way the group goes like Snow and Lightning do. She doesn't fight to be a leader. It's not even comparable to Tidus and Yunas weird roles as main character presented and main character factual because she's got a lot of the features of main character presented and main character factual too. But somehow she isn't. It's a really intriguing thing your brought up.

May I suggest that maybe one of the hidden flaws of FFXIII was the way the party stayed seperate for so long. It reduced choice and player control in gameplay but it also damaged the natural feeling of the story and by ruining the tightness of the group. If they'd stayed together there would be much more of a feeling of these people forced together as they run from everything. It would become us and the world, clearly defined and seperated. What's more I think it would help with this main character business and Vanille and even improve the individual storylines. The individual storylines were brilliant but they would feel more cohesive and tell us even more if they occurred in the context of a group of people. We could see the background relations and we could be reminded of the others rather than forgetting about them until the scene switches. And removing scene switches would make the game feel more natural and help the player feel like they're being dictated too less.

Two characters can still have personal time in a group, it even enhances that personal time.

Both marcellX and Tomwithnonumbers provided very good responses to my brief article due to the 400 word limit with reasonable criticisms. Thank you both.

Thank you for being so kind :D