The Good

As the first Final Fantasy game on a ‘next-gen’ console, FF13 has a lot to live up to in the graphics and sound department. For the most part, it succeeds brilliantly. This is a gorgeous game, no doubt about it.  The effects are good, the areas stunning, and some parts really show off the power of the new systems, particularly the Archelyte Steppe.  Some areas fall to the ‘brown is realistic’ trap of modern games, but on the whole the colors are varied… though they could be more vibrant.  The plains seem a little washed out, in my opinion.

Nitpicking aside, let’s move on to the characters. Aside from Hope(who gets better but is always something of an annoyance), the characters are actually pretty nice. This is subjective of course, but I thought they did a good job of taking a standard archetype and playing around with it a little for each character, making them a bit more complex.  One of the other nice changes is that any romance theme is severely understated in this game… the adventure is about the characters and their interrelationships, with no overarching love story happening.  Not to say there isn’t any romance in it, as Snow and Serah prove, but it’s secondary to the main plot. It’s a refreshing change, really, since romance in a JRPG is rarely handled well.

The new combat system has its flaws – which I will cover later – but it is a new system with its own advantages. You only directly control one person, but you can set AI strategies on the fly. As a result, the combat system more involves swapping AI strategies on the fly and adapting them to the challenges than individually setting commands. Combined with the healing at the end of every battle, this makes for a fast, furious, and dynamic system that does have its moments. The lack of worry about HP and MP maintenance is nice, though they do have a ‘Technique Point’ system used for the more powerful abilities.

All in all, I can’t say I didn’t have fun, which is important. That said, I can’t say it was the most epic game I’ve played lately either. Which brings us to…

The Bad

I’m going to try to focus on parts of the game that are objectively bad, rather than stylistically suspect.  For that, go to the next section.

First off is the combat system. This is a big problem for the FF team lately, because let’s face it… most other RPG serieses out there settle on a system and refine variations of it, occasionally exploring new territory. There’s a big, big reason for this.  Doing it this way allows the system to be ironed out, problems in play found, and revisions address those problems.  Meanwhile, the past four FF games have completely reinvented systems, so they have all the warts any new system has.

In this particular case the battle system has some pretty huge warts. I mentioned earlier the need to swap AI routines – called Paradigms – in order to deal with threats.  This is done in-battle and on the fly, but sometimes the swap is instant, and sometimes it takes 2-3 seconds.  There’s no way that I’ve seen to tell why it sometimes takes longer, but this can be really annoying if you’re hurriedly selecting and pick the wrong one by accident, or if you’re just trying to change and the enemy slaughters you while you’re swapping.  Even when you’re not selecting ‘Auto’ for the single controlled character, the turns are often moving so quickly that manually picking abilities is impractical. There’s no time to strategize, which might be ‘realistic’ but not very RPG-ish.  Not to mention that the battle goes by so quickly and dazzles with so many effects that you really don’t get to enjoy the visuals and the great rendering of the monsters and characters. Even pausing the screen only results in a blurry, smudged image.

The real pet peeve I have with the battle system, though, is that it’s position-based in the most lazy ass way.  I like position-based systems, normally. What this means is that certain attacks, both from monsters and PCs, are area-effect attacks and can hit multiple targets.  This is fine with me, except that there’s no way to directly control your PC’s movement on the field!  Knowing that the big bad boss has an attack that hits a group for massive damage doesn’t help when you can’t tell your group to scatter! It smacks of laziness and artificial difficulty, to me.

Speaking of artificial difficulty, they’ve put a preemptive attack system in this one that allows you to ‘surprise’ enemies by taking them from behind or unawares. In theory, this is a nice addition. In practice, it stinks because it doesn’t make any logical sense.  Sometimes the enemies will know you’re there the moment you step into their ‘zone’ even if their back is turned. Other times you can run right up to their front and get a surprise attack. If it were consistent and predictable, this would go in the Good section… but instead it’s a feature that turned out more annoyance than fun.

Normally I wouldn’t rant about a story as being objectively bad, but there’s an important point here, as well. Many people have criticized this game for its linearity, particularly how some maps are literally a straight corridor full of enemies. I don’t actually have a problem with this, although it makes the game feel constrained to me.  What makes it more constrained is the actual plot, which has the main characters bumbling around and bouncing from situation to situation, mostly reacting and running. At no point do they actually sit down and come up with a workable plan on what to do next.  For a game whose theme seems to be ‘Screw Destiny!’ this is really, really lazy. Not only was the player not in control of where to go or what to do, it felt like the characters weren’t either. It could be argued this was intentional, but if the whole point of the game is to say ‘Do your own thing’ then at SOME point someone should actually, I don’t know… decide to do something on their own.

The Ugly

Now we get to stylistic things that I think are a bad idea, but not necessarily bad design. I’m getting a little tired of a seeming rant, so I’ll try to be brief.

The first thing that comes to mind is the Datalog. A lot of the mythology and background isn’t expressed in exposition… which is fine, as that can get dull. The problem being there’s so much of it to absorb that you kind of need to read the datalog for hours to really get an idea of WTF anyone is talking about. Even worse, if you read the synopses of the various events, they often make you wonder if the writer was watching the same cut scenes, as it’s common for there to be direct contradictions between what is said and what is in the synopsis. Another lazy dev moment.

Secondly is the linearity. At some point the game does open up, but by then it feels like you’ve just run through a 30 hour tutorial. Then you’re sort of thrown to the wolves with very little guidance, a direct opposite of how it was working before. It was jarring, to say the least.

Third, this is Final Fantasy, but where’s the Fantasy?  I recall the word magic mentioned maybe like… three times in all. Everything else has a distinctly sci-fi bent, to the point of anti-gravity and monorails and hovercycles.  Even the Mage role in Paradigm setup isn’t called a Mage… instead they call them Ravagers, when they’re clearly a ‘mage’ type. What?

I’m sure there are other gripes I have, but I don’t want to make it sound like I hated the game.  So, I’ll stick with the biggest gripe of all: Endgame.  I don’t mind bonus dungeons or bonus post-game material, but when the world opens up for you in Chapter 11, you see all this cool stuff around… but it turns out it’s all too tough for you until after you’ve cleared the storyline.  Literally hours and hours of the actual ‘game’ parts of the game are held back until you’ve ‘finished’ it, and that sort of thing leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

What It Did Right

I’ll readily admit I’m biased. I don’t like the direction 4th Edition took Dungeons and Dragons either.  However, to be fair, it’s not because it’s a bad game on its own.  So I should start with talking about what I think 4th Edition does well, and the improvements it made.  On the whole, I can see that it’s a decently-designed game, and it is fun when played. I didn’t come to this decision without giving it a couple tries.  So in that respect, the designers succeeded.

The most prominent thing I’ve noticed about 4th Edition is the balance. Balance is king in 4th, and it’s drilled in for every class, every item, even how magic items are created and used. This isn’t an in depth review, of the system, so I won’t cover specifics here.  Either as a side effect or as a conscious decision, this balance has also normalized the mechanics of every class across the board.  Power, class feature, Skill.  All use the same mechanics for every class. The power effects themselves determine if it’s a support role or attack role or whatever.  Some people don’t like this, but if you’re going to streamline combat and balance it, that’s a good step.  Since it falls squarely within the design goals of the system, I’m marking that as a plus.

Streamlining was given a great degree of importance, as well. Better miniatures integration, easily adjustable monsters for the DM, and the aforementioned flattened mechanics make combats go faster… or at least they seem to go faster.  Actual time spent seems to be about the same, but the characters can handle a greater number of enemies in that time span. Mechanics in general were simplified, and though there are those who complain about this, I’ll mark it as a positive.

The presentation of the game itself is very bold.  I don’t mean that in an “in your face” way, either.  Just flipping through the book, all the races and classes are shown in half-page cuts with dynamic, colorful poses.  A newbie flipping through the book gets to see a bit of life in them, begging “pick me, pick me!”  At least that’s the impression I get from how its laid out.  This styling isn’t to be dismissed, honestly… it gets people into the game, visualizing their characters. Arguably it does a much better job than the relatively dull poses and artwork shown in the 3.x series.

First Mistake: The Launch

While I was too young to remember the launch of 1st Edition AD&D, I was playing during the introduction of 2nd Edition, and quite active when 3rd was launched.  The differences in approaches are astounding. The 2nd Edition launch can’t really be compared with the others, as the influence and size of the company, not to mention its management, were completely different at the time. I’ll concentrate on the launch of 3rd versus 4th Edition, instead.

When 3rd Edition was announced, Dragon Magazine made certain to give small overviews of each system and change on a month by month basis. They were honest about the fact that 3rd was a significantly different game, but provided a plethora of conversion material to ease the pain of buying all new books. Wizards of the Coast put in a presence at most of the conventions with various preview materials. Most interesting to me was their large booth at Origins, where they ran small demo games and had a preview printing of the not-yet-released Player’s Handbook, encased in glass but with holes that people could use to turn the pages and get a look at it.  Several of the actual developers of the game were there to answer questions and talk about the work that went into it.  Certainly, there was still some resistance to a new system, but the overall feeling was that everyone in the company understood that reluctance and was doing their best to assuage it.

Fourth Edition’s launch was different. While I was not reading Dragon Magazine at the time and therefore can’t offer an opinion on their coverage of that, I did see some of the debates online. There were the expected flare ups, but little real information until near the release date. A lot of hype was built up… and that’s fine. What wasn’t fine was Wizards basically having a public attitude of “you’ll convert and you’ll like it” in most of their announcements. It’s nice to have confidence in the product, but telling people they can throw away the shelves full of expensive books from the previous edition isn’t going to win any points.

And then there’s the convention presence. Or, more accurately, the lack of such. Wizards didn’t even have a booth at Origins at all, even though by then the game had actually been released. In fact, it was only around a month or so that it had been out, and there was no real attempt to sell it to the industry.  Most of the third party companies that used to do a lot of 3rd Edition work had nothing but complaints of the new licensing scheme, and there was no representative from Wizards to explain their point of view.  Even finding a 4th Edition game to play in was difficult, and this at the second largest gaming convention in the nation. And I was actually interested in trying out the game! Imagine how difficult it will be to convince the naysayers when they can’t just wander by and observe a game, like they could with the launch of 3rd Edition.

“Okay,” says my internal Devil’s Advocate, “But Wizards was trying to appeal to a larger audience, and only a small fraction of the hardcore players attend conventions, so is it that important?”  Well, maybe not. We’ll let these first two details slide, though it is still two strikes against the launch.  So why don’t we focus on the real bungling here?  Trying to appeal to a new demographic is fine, though it’s better to not disturb your base too much in the process. However, much ado was made about the online features of DnD Insider both online, and in the print release of the books. Various features like the Game Table and Character Visualizer were promised, along with a Character Builder and Compendium. Even for one such as myself, the temptation of easy online play with a streamlined system was enough to tempt me toward playing or running a game in 4th.

Unfortunately, this was not to be.  Upon launch, none of these features were available. In all fairness, the Compendium — arguably the simplest feature — went up not long after the launch. Even so, it’s been nearly a year since that day and the only promised feature that has been released is the Character Builder. Although convenient, I can do that without an online tool. I want the kickass features like the Visualizer and the Game Table.  But there’s no sign of such on the main page. Way to look professional, guys. I’m sure that inspires all the newcomers as to your dedication to supporting the system. Now there’s another book out, and they’re still pushing this new system, yet I still have a bad taste in my mouth from that bait and switch.

Change Is Good, Change Is Bad

All right, so they messed up the launch. It’s possible to recover from that. But that depends on the game having a wide appeal and/or a supportive fanbase. To be perfectly honest, I do think 4th has more than enough devotees to succeed and turn a profit. I’m not so certain the fanbase will ever be the same, though. More than any previous edition, 4th tossed out a lot of old rules and made something different. The complete elimination of backwards compatibility is controversial, but I’m of the opinion that sometimes, it’s for the best. I’ll not criticize that decision, by itself. The real problem isn’t that the old system was dropped, it’s that no upgrade path was provided at all. Wizards gave no real help to people wanting to transition from 3.x to 4th, and instead simply cut support as soon as 4th was released. Even popular products that were released a mere year before launch are getting hard to find now, and the sudden drop was a hard pill to swallow for people still trying to fill out their 3rd Edition collection.

The fact of the matter is, even the best of new editions takes some time to spread and replace the old.  And I wouldn’t call 4th the ‘best’ replacement for 3rd. A lot of people will protest because they love it, and I hasten to add that what 4th focuses on, it does extremely well. Here’s the rub, though:  4th edition focused on streamlining and appealing to one particular play style, at the expense of all the others.  Some of this is unavoidable, as increasing flexibility often increases complexity, unless things are abstracted to an immense degree. This alone is not too bad, but it’s combining with everything else to make 4th less appealing to the audience.

Fourth Edition represents not just a change in systems, but a fundamental genre shift. The first three editions have all been about simulating a fantasy world using pen and paper and possibly miniatures.  At first, it was combat only, with nonweapon proficiencies — “skills” — introduced in Oriental Adventures and the various Survival Guides.  In 2nd Edition, NWPs became standard to the system, but were heavily reliant upon initial stats and very primitive in execution.  Finally, with 3rd, D&D became a true skill-based system, even with the level advancement still present.

This is all changed in 4th. While skills are still present, only reduced in number, various other parts of the system have been altered to make it feel focused almost entirely upon combat. Skill Challenges are a nod to noncombat parts of adventures, but even with these the entire game feels set up as… well, a game. This isn’t a bad thing by itself, but all previous editions had been a move toward a more simulationist feel, so 4th feels like a massive step back.  Arbitrary limits are place upon magic items, while many spells are no longer a limited resource and now just another attack. Classes are fixed, with the “multiclassing” thrown in feeling like some sort of half-forgotten crumbs to appease people who like combination builds. For that matter, the entire game is focused upon “builds” and planned character advancement rather than organic growth through roleplay. If someone decides that after five levels, their character no longer wants to be a fighter, but the cleric is a better calling… tough. They’re stuck as a Fighter for the rest of their life, with at best a smattering of pitiful cleric abilities that are paid for by sacrificing much better skills.  This is such a massive step backward it’s sickening… even 1st edition had dual classing, though the rules for demihumans made no sense.

And that is the big gripe. Where 3.X felt like the system was working with you to simulate roleplay, in 4th it feels like any roleplay of great complexity forces you to work around the extremely gamist elements of the system. The balance forced down the player throats is all, supposedly, meant to eliminate min/maxing and builds like the infamous Pun-Pun build, yet at the same time referring to different paths as “builds” in the main rulebook encourages, in my mind, a very metagame-level approach to creating a character. It bothers me on a fundamental level. Sure, nobody’s forcing me to metagame, but isn’t that what everyone was complaining about? I think this is one reason that everyone, rightly or wrongly, accuses 4th of borrowing from MMOs and such. Because it doesn’t feel like you’re adventuring in a fantasy world so much as, well… playing a game set in a fantasy world. It’s a step back from immersion, in my opinion.

Miniatures

Small rant here. A lot of people are complaining about the increased reliance upon miniatures in 4th as compared to previous editions. While I do prefer having the option of doing paper-only play, I’m going to withhold judgment on that for now and strike at the real problem. In any battle suggested by the rules or published adventures, the DM requires a large number of similar monster figures, not to mention player representations. Wizards recommends using their own, prepainted minis for this. While I like those minis, and think they’re decent quality for the price, they’re a collectible item. The distribution of figurines is random, in sealed packs, so collecting say… ten orcs, which should be a fairly simple exercise, would require an outlay of up to $100, easily. While it’s possible to buy preopened second hand for cheaper, I don’t think this is what WotC intended and it isn’t a good solution. And people say Warhammer is expensive! Minor subrant over.

The Future

I don’t think 4th Edition will fail, despite my own misgivings. PHB 2 has some interesting stuff in it, but not enough to really make me want to buy the supplements and play a regular game.  From what I’ve heard, supplements aren’t selling well, either.  I don’t think WotC will see a massive explosion in number of players, sad to say. As for myself, I don’t think I’ll be playing 4th much unless they can get Table up and running, and it isn’t terrible. I can appreciate the push toward balance, it just feels like the system itself was butchered to make it happen, and too many missteps tell me it wasn’t as well thought out as everyone says.