The other day I was reading the new VGcats comic. It’s a strip I like quite a bit on the rare occasion it’s updated. The most recent comic on the site however left me feeling confused. Essentially, what it says is that FF13 sucks for A, B, and C reasons, while older RPGs like FF7 were excellent for comparatively better reasons. The comic was quite funny, but the authors’ argument sounds completely nostalgia driven. I wonder if Scott Ramsoomair were to play FF7 for the first time today if he would like it anywhere near as much as he did as a child.
He makes arguments such as the music in FF13 is bland and cookie cutter, while songs like “One Winged Angel” were iconic and memorable. I’ll concede that “One Winged Angel” is a pretty awesome song, especially the orchestrated version for Advent Children, but I can’t think of many other songs that were that memorable from FF7. “Aerith’s Theme” is up there, but overall I’d have to say that at around halfway through FF13 I’m enjoying the music as much if not more.
He also complains about FF13’s linearity versus FF7’s (or any older RPG he likes presumably) illusion of freedom. FF13’s lack of an open world has been a huge point of contention among all Final Fantasy fans since its announcement. I personally prefer it, though I suppose I can’t fault others for enjoying a vast open world. That’s fine, but complaining about a lack of an illusion of choice is just silly. I could understand wanting side quests, but he makes it sound like he just wants to think he can do other stuff and not actually do it.
The most obvious example of his argument being a nostalgia driven love affair is when Scott says FF13 removes any semblance of strategy from the fights by only allowing the player to control one character. I actually played through FF7 for the first time fairly recently and naturally did not have my “Eye’s of a Ten Year Old Makes Everything Awesome” goggles on for the experience. The game has held up over the years, I thoroughly enjoyed it, but being able to control three people at the same time hardly made any of the fights strategic. The materia system essentially made every character the same, which made the fights boil down to what they are in almost every RPG, everyone attacks until their health drops below 50% and then switch the weakest character/healer character to healing duty. There were a few fights that required specific strategies, but all but a handful of boss fights could be beaten by using the aforementioned strategy. Most of the trash monsters could be defeated using only the A button while my left hand was free to feed me pizza.
FF13 on the other hand is about as close to a real time combat system as you can get while still remaining turn based. Once it gets complex the player may only be controlling one character, but he is also in charge of managing which classes everyone is in order to heal, debuff, deal damage or attempt a Stagger. This would mean, for instance, that a fight could start with my chain heavy set of classes (called a Paradigm) followed by an immediate switch to his damage dealing Paradigm in order to take full advantage of the Stagger effect his chain Paradigm triggered, then again followed by a quick switch to a more heal/defense oriented Paradigm, but only long enough to get everyone back to around 3/4ths of their health, and then start the process over again on the opponent he was slowly weakening during the healing phase of his strategy , altering as needed for the decrease in enemies. That is just one strategy I came up with last night when I started facing some enemies with a lot of health that I needed to deal with quickly and I didn’t even go into any of the other facets of combat such as the myriad of moves each class change brings or how triggering a turn early can be incredibly advantageous if it saves the Stagger bar from being depleted. I only mentioned the Paradigm changing aspect of the combat, there is still the timing of the ATB gauge, items, techniques, summons, elemental weaknesses and more all requiring thought in real time.
Most of that stuff probably doesn’t make much sense out of context, but my point is FF13’s combat system is objectionably incredibly more complex and strategic than FF7’s could ever hope to be. If the player was in control of all three characters he would be physically unable to keep up with everything needed to be done. As is, he is micromanaging their classes which is essentially controlling their actions. Of course there are easy fights where pressing auto attack six times is sufficient for a victory, but that is the case with all these games. It may be a faulting point, but for all RPGs, not just FF13.
If FF13 and FF7 switched places and somehow magically had their graphics and audio changed accordingly to match their times then I propose Scott’s comic would be about how the newest RPG from Square Enix features dumbed down combat and a largely superfluous open world. That may be an exaggeration, but FF13 isn’t quantifiably better or worse than any previous game in the series and most complaints against it that I have heard seem to confirm this. Take a look back at your favorite RPG from your childhood and see if you can tell me exactly what it is that makes it so much better than their modern day equivalents. I’ve mentioned before how the genre has been in a perpetual state of stagnation since its creation, so I won’t be surprised when all you can come back with is your personal taste about each games individual story.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy JRPGs, I just think everyone is looking back at the gems from the ‘90s with rose-tinted glasses and refuse to acknowledge that the blockbuster RPG’s of today are just as good* and the RPG’s of the past are just as bad.
*Except Star Ocean 4, Tales of Vesperia, and Eternal Sonata (despite its rad combat system).
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