As a Viking warrior, there is nothing I love more than sitting around the smoking remains of a house and being told a story which captivates the heart and the imagination. For years, the stories of Final Fantasy have kept me entertained whilst gingerly sipping from a skull filled with ale, but yet, as of late, the skulls never seem deep enough to wash the taste of awful story telling out of my mouth and ears.
Final Fantasy XIII is a story that is simultaneoulsy baffling, nauseating, and shit. Themes are forced, the plot twists and turns like the entrails of my enemies around my sword, and characters seem have as much emotional stability as my brother the bi-polar beserker.
I don't know if it's Japanese culture trying to imitate Western styles, or wether the people who normally write the plots and characters had watched Miley Cyrus movies for two weeks straight, but for whatever reason, each character is now their own lead character, and has to make an impassioned speech about their need for individuality, as well as simultaneously be synonymous with the rest of the group, and then within the next two minutes lose hope and cry.
As a Viking, my emotions are simple, and are as follows: hungry, angry, bloodrage, horny, ravenous, sleepy, and in more often than not in that very order. What Square Enix is forgetting is that even people that aren't Vikings are still fairly simple, and emotions are dictated by immediate events and revelations. When characters are going from hope to despair from cutscene to cutscene, and in one circumstance within five minutes (quite literally, I timed that train-wreck), it makes me lose interest in a franchise that I used to admire.
Having graduated from Viking University having studied English for years, I thought I would be able to wrap my horned helmet around any story and make sense of it. I was very, very wrong. Our main characters are fugitives of their home because they have become L'Cie. Apparently there are two types of L'Cie, but how they distinguish the two is not mentioned. How you become one doesn't seem to follow a logical system either. They are given a Focus, which is a goal they have to fulfill, and if they dont, they turn into monsters.
Due to the total lack of any real character development, which was replaced by emotional flip-flopping, the point of this focus becomes increasingly unclear. While I am trying to keep from spoiling the story for those who want to play it, after they uncover their focus, they all simultanously say 'Ragnorok'. That was 3 hours into the game, and I had no idea what Ragnorok was. 12 hours and I still have no clue.
To be fair I could look in the menu and get a full description of events and histories in bite sized portions, but I feel this defeats the point of playing what is essentially a story game. An old Viking goes; "Dont tell the peasant you have an axe, show him you have one by planting it in his shoulder." I want to be shown a story, and if I wanted to read, I would have bought a book.
The two last things I have to mention annoy me the most, so much that I will have to sail my longboat all the way to Japan, burn some rice paddies, and sail back. (I know rice paddies are normally planted in about 4 inches of water, but Viking fire burns water. Trust me, I know.)
The grunts and squeals and groans make me uncomfortable, and as someone with a decent amount of pillaging and looting under his belt, this is saying something. It has never been necessary for a character to display every emotion with a noise. Hell, even in porn they try to act a little first. Vanille, one of the characters, sounds like she is in the grips of foreplay every time she opens her mouth. No need people, I have the internet, and I can hear all I want at any given time.
The second thing is that this seemingly eternally fondled female is narrating the entire adventure, despite the fact she is one of several main characters and isn't even the preferred leader of the party.
Having thrown my skull still swimming with ale at a passing peasant, I feel discontent and cheated, like when Olaf hides my battle axe before a raid.
Marks Mark: 2/5.
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