Final Fantasy XIII is a ripoff of Digital Devil Saga

[Hitoshura]

Before it even came out, I had this theory in my head that SE has been ripping the concept from Digital Devil Saga for this... except not doing it as well as that game does because DDS is actually enjoyable. To prove my point, here is the main idea of the beginning of DDS’s story:

A group of people lived their everyday lives until one beautiful day on one of their battlefields an egg-like structure appeared that shot the light rays through the game’s characters leaving a tattoo mark on their bodies. Soon they discovered that with the help of this mark they are able to transform (summon) into monsters that have a hunger to devourer other humans. A hidden figure, Angel (Fal’Cie), who is in control of everything that is happening in their world left them a message that in order for them to reach Nirvana (focus) they have to bring down the enemy tribes (Cacoon). Then their curse of being such monsters (L’cie) would go away and they could have a peaceful life. Sounds familiar? Oh yeah, there is also a chick named Sera (Serah) who is the first to get that mark and cause this to happen to your cast by getting familiar with them. Ha! By the way, she as a character is a very innocent young girl who eventually shares a passionate kiss with this game's buffoon, Heat (Snow), who also happens to be older than her and tries to be the leader (the hero) of the group even though he is not. :redface:


Another thing is that one of the leading females in the game, Argilla, just happen to be a little bit too much like Lightning. She is an elite soldier, who happened to have pink hair, and her mark is also placed on her breast. On the exact same place as Light's. :mischief:


And now the gameplay. The way DDS is set up is that you get a story cutscene then go through a long dungeon, then a cutscene, then a dungeon, and so on. Final Fantasy haven't done this before, but for some reason 13 is set up exactly like that. DDS doesn't have much towns either outside of their main base. The crystarium system in FF13 is also similar to the mantra system in DDS in overall look and progression style. Save points in both games have multiple purposes, such as upgrading abilites in DDS and upgrading weapons in FF13. In the battle system, DDS has an auto-battle which is a feature that is common to SMT series. All of a sudden FF13 has added that, too, and made it a whole lot more invasive. Not to mention, the original idea was to make FF13 be a cell shaded game, and guess what DDS is?


DDS Matra System


Cell Shaded FF13


General look of DDS


I am sure I can think of more things, like how DDS has a sequel that takes the story on an unrelated route just like FF13-2, but I played DDS many many years ago to remember everything. So, your thoughts? :trolleyes:

SOURCE: http://www.finalfantasy-fxn.net/boar...Such-a-Rip-Off

My mind is blown. At first I thought that cel shaded render for 13 was BS until I saw the similar font with the UI.

[Insanecyclone]

But that cel-shaded look was just the alpha stuff.

[Hitoshura]

Still scratching my head over it, especially for not realizing it myself.

[Nevex]

Interesting analogy but the deliberate attempt to make FFXIII look bad because it was inspired by another game (something every single JRPG does to an extent. Good luck finding a truly original JRPG out there) annoys me.
Double standards aside, what exactly is the difference between "ripoff" and "spiritual successor" again?

[Hitoshura]

I don't look at it that way because the similarities are just way too questionable. Lighting and Argilla having the tattoo on the same exact spot, hair, and personality, both Sera's.. the world, the way everything happened, the story, other characters, setting, I mean goddamn. Not to mention DDS1's press turn system (created from SMT III: Nocturne) is a complete unique beast of its own, nothing like Final Fantasy. People tend to compare the SMT series more to Pokemon.. even though it existed before Pokemon lol.

I didn't make this thread to out right bash FF13, but just thought people should see an interesting post, which would probably be overlooked if I hadn't made a thread of it's own. I love FF13's battle system, it's very fun, fast paced and addictive. The storyline and characters are forgettable, DDS1 definitely did it way better in that regard.

[Lonely]

Seriously?

No really, seriously?

REEEEEAAALLLY??!?!?!??!

[hey]

Good luck finding a truly original anything out there

fixed.

Argilla looks absolutely nothing like lightning.

[Hitoshura]

Still a lot of similarities.

[hey]

Still a lot of similarities.

Maybe, but those two characters look absolutely nothing alike. They both have pink hair. That's about it. And even their hair is vastly different. lightnings is just faint pink, with a much more plain style. Being pink isn't even unique either, since every other character from japan has pink hair.

[Hitoshura]

To be fair the original post never once said anything about the characters looking alike, only being alike. All semantics aside, all similarities/comparisons pointed out about the storyline and everything else are again, questionable. What's most surprising is that this came from a Final Fantasy forum.

[hey]

That seemed to be the implication, however.

Not sure why anyone cares anyway. Nothing is original, that includes FFs.

[Hitoshura]

I think he was trying to put more attention to the tattoo/mark on the breast, and I -guess- the pink hair. They are both pretty tough ladies and similar in that regard of elite soldier status. Argilla being a bit more fug, but I mean with Kaneko doing the art style, it's not exactly Nomura pretty.

[Hitoshura]

That seemed to be the implication, however.

Not sure why anyone cares anyway. Nothing is original, that includes FFs.

Flying a giant fucking space ship whale to the moon sounds pretty original to me, A villain who was seen as just a clown ends up becoming a god, actually defeats and splits up the main characters, not to mention goes on to dominate and terrorize the rest of the world for years, which yeah I don't recall anything like that happening in a FF game, let alone any other RPG where the villain actually wins like that.

[Nevex]

Flying a giant fucking space ship whale to the moon sounds pretty original to me, A villain who was seen as just a clown ends up becoming a god, actually defeats and splits up the main characters, not to mention goes on to dominate and terrorize the rest of the world for years, which yeah I don't recall anything like that happening in a FF game, let alone any other RPG where the villain actually wins like that.

The space whale thing is one of the most cliche and overused plot devices in fiction. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpaceWhale

As for Kefka, he's essentially the Joker, plus god-like powers. Nothing exactly original in my book.

I'm not trying to say that FF is a bad franchise because it's not very original. FF is many good things, but original it is not.

[Hitoshura]

Kefka is unique enough to be his own character IMO. Yeah I realize the space whale is used a lot everywhere but not as your personal air ship to the moon to even add more ridiculousness to the story with FuYoSa, Golbez being your brother, being from space... yeah it just got more crazy lol.

I get what you are saying, that everything is borrowed from older stuff. It's why I love Nocturne so much, Kaneko designs his demons after actual demon/god/greek mythology and just throws it into his insane story line and game play.

[Gokulo]

You can almost pair any two jRPGs and pick similar details like that. Also, I find a lot of these comparisons to be a huge stretch. I'm not defending one game or the other, just find the whole write-up to be silly and forced just because the author noticed and remembered some stuff.
Actually, things like this are written once in every while and people believe they discovered something amazing ^^;.

[Xno Kappa]

No.

[hey]

Flying a giant fucking space ship whale to the moon sounds pretty original to me, A villain who was seen as just a clown ends up becoming a god, actually defeats and splits up the main characters, not to mention goes on to dominate and terrorize the rest of the world for years, which yeah I don't recall anything like that happening in a FF game, let alone any other RPG where the villain actually wins like that.

Not sure if serious. The bad guys winning isn't an original idea.

Yeah I realize the space whale is used a lot everywhere but not as your personal air ship to the moon

Using an olde idea in a slightly different way is not original.

[Olo401]

I don't see it, and even if I did you mean FF13 Vs. , not FF13