Let us Speak of Narrative

Hours played: 8.15
Played up to Chapter 5: Vanity

Disc two bitches! I've made it far, but can I make it farther! Oh the suspense.

Eek. Something that has been really bugging me about my play through with FFXIII has been how they throw in countless little cinematics while you move through a level. My real problem isn't the cinematics (though I don't really care for them), it's how they're interspersed between these useless moments of game play that are supposed to be tutorial. It's like one type of shit I don't like gets interrupted by another type of shit that I like even less, thus preventing me from getting through that first shit. Wait, why am I even playing this? Oh yeah, because it's supposed to get better. I WILL SEE, hopefully.

I understand mechanically how this first bit (HAHAHAHA) of the game should work. There are three interwoven elements: tutorial, time to learn, and narrative/back story. I've already talked about how I think the tutorial elements sort of fail, but what's really becoming jarring is the shift between these three elements.

My assumption is that the part of the game I'm in right now, is slowly introducing me to the complexity of the combat system, thus I only have to control two characters. The designers want me to understand how classes compliment/interact between two classes before they'll give me the chance to work with three. I understand this idea, however, because you don't have a full team the fights have to be easier, and so when I enter combat I never really have to do much. I'm button mashing again, auto-chaining and every once and a while paradigm shifting, almost out of an attempt to better understand the system, not because I need to.

So given the ease of progress right now, and the simpleness of combat, all I do is run along the path into enemies, then button mash them to death, and after about four minutes of this I get pulled into a cinematic. And that's what I've been doing for hours now. I walk forward, through battles, and watch cinematics. I don't feel like I'm being offered a great amount of game play, and even this limited game play is constantly interrupted by the cinematics. It's a repetitive cycle that makes this "tutorial" the most trying thing to get through.

The cinematics, hmm. I don't want to be too harsh, but I tend to find the way the characters act, and their dialogue to be either trite, cliched, or melodramatic. Maybe I should just say unsubtle, something that could have been improved with further drafting. Now, this isn't uncommon for video games, so maybe I should shut my mouth. But no, FFXIII isn't a normal video game.

FFXIII purposefully places narrative front and foremost in the game. The story and characters are supposed to be good, supposed to be epic, sweeping and riveting. I mean, people love these games for a reason, and it's not because of the role-playing right? FF is about characters and stories, and so these cinematics need to be held to a higher standard. I'm not attacking the story, because I'm not far enough in to it to talk about it intelligently but I do find the characters (only some) and dialogue to be grating. But the characters will grow, so maybe the cinematics will too.

That's a long argument, so fuck it, quick notes after the jump.

The Journey Begins

Hours Played: 1:07
Chapter 1: Fates Intertwined

Well the easy part is over, I've started FFXIII. As the FF start screen did its typical sweeping thing I wondered: do all FF start screens start out in the clouds? I'm not an expert or anything, I just know XII's opening, and it sure starts out in the clouds. I'm not bashing either game just because they have a similar first twelve seconds of the start screen cinematic, I just thought it was funny. I tried to find previous star screen cinematics on YouTube but I couldn't necessarily discern whether they were indeed what I was looking for or if it was an opening cinematic. Oh well. Clouds are pretty.

Some quick notes:

• I think it's actually funny that Lightning declares that a tutorial is about to begin. "Watch and learn." Made me laugh
• The game tells you that "enemies stalk the roads that you travel." From what I gather, I'm going to be traveling a lot of roads...
• I hate this camera. Instead of swinging freely, it seems to swing with weight. It moves slowly at first but then seems to retain momentum after I've spun it for a second or so, making it more difficult to stop. I remember XII's camera being more of the free style. I'll have to boot it up to see.

Alright, so the big thing I noticed last night was some serious hand holding. Now, I'm not a big hand holder, ask Meg, but at least with her, she's a pretty lady. XIII wants to hold my hand like a mommy. I kicked that addiction at least a good fortnight ago and frankly I'm insulted. It's like I'm playing a fucking Wii game. Okay, let's not get angry, they're trying to woo a new market with this game, they need to explain some RPG things. Be more forgiving, me.

You know, at first I thought I could actually handle the tutorials: during the first battle, a tutorial taught me how to use the system, and once I was left to my own I did some fighting and things were going pretty good but I eventually hit a point where I was probably going to die, so, like a sane person, I used a potion from the items command. I healed and killed the bat-snake-bird-robot-plane thing. Oh good, I thought, so they teach me the basics but leave me to figure out the fairly obvious concept of using a potion on my own. And this happens in the first battle, so we have a good blend of tutorial and self teaching. I was shocked and impressed, as I had heard that the game treats you like a moron.

Of course thirty minutes later a tutorial pops up to teach me how to use a potion. Wait--what? How was I supposed to beat the first guy if I didn't use a potion? I was using autobattle the whole time and I would have died if I hadn't "figured out on my own" how to use a potion. How was that fight supposed to play out. Also, now I'm afraid I'm going to get a tutorial hours later on everything I've figure out on my own.

Like equipping items. Figured that one out on my own without a tutorial. How is this moron FXIII takes it player for (let's call him Chaz) supposed to know how to equip items? Will he get to an equipping tutorial hours later and discover that he's been carrying a bunch of useful weapons around but hasn't been using them because no one told him how to equip them? Or maybe FFXIII will never teach Chaz how to equip things and he'll go the whole game with shite weapons and equipment. If I was Chaz, I'd be piiiissed.

Then again, since I'm a huge moron, I might not understand that I've just been fucked over and instead slap my knees with joy because I can now use a more advanced powerball on Snow, my favourite and most identifiable character.

Seriously, Snow and all his revolutionary buddies are retarded. What's the plan? Run in guns blazing? Cool! NO, not cool. You are revolutionaries, haven't you ever heard of guerilla tactics? Nope? You're just a bunch of tossers? Never mind then, go get yourself and every one else killed in whatever brilliant plan you jokers have cooked up. I sure hope this day is everything you dreamed it would be when you were jacking off to it on your toilet as a preteen. Oh Snow! you're a reaaaal hero! Fuck off.

Seriously, at one point I stopped to take a note and Snow stood there pounding his fist. I cannot describe to you how mad that made me. If this character persists at this one note bore-fest then a) he'll never be in my party now matter how hard he can punch (read: punch, instead of use a gun like every other sane revolutionary...sigh) and b) I'll think much less of the FFXIII writers.

I never thought Snow would be more annoying than the kids but who knew, surprises abound in FFXIII. But maybe I just haven't had enough time with Hope. I assume I learn soon enough who's the biggest twat in Cocoon.

On the positive!, Sazh is pretty funny, as is his little chocobo. I will make every effort to include him in my party. Though from what I here, this may not be easy.