The Ending [SPOILERS]

[Raen Ryong]

Well, that is true enough I suppose. I guess I just wanted some form of co-operation rather than "mutual ignoring".

[Zanz L. Barre The 3rd]

Ending was pretty good I thought. I felt this was one of the better FFs.

[Talragan]

I was kinda confused also, wish was way to go back and look at all movie sequences. This thread has made it clearer though

[Saga]

Just beat it, so disappointed. There was nothing truly "epic" about the story, no real villian until the very end. Bathandelus was fucking lame, you can barely even call him a villain. I felt extremely isolated the entire game, which I get is what the l'Cie were feeling but don't put your audience through that. This was the only FF where I've actually skipped cut scenes, because every single one boiled down to:

Person A: "We have to do WHAT?!"

Person B: "There's no point in arguing, we just have to believe we can do it!"

Person A: "No way! we can't do THAT!"

Person C: "Hey, Person B is right! Just believe!"

Person A: "Oh, all right...but I won't be happy about it!"

Persons D, E, and F: :laughter:

Still had no idea what was going on in the game until the very,very end, because everything until the Orphan fight was one giant ambiguous goal. There was literally nothing driving the story except going to place B because we were told to go there, and since we won't know what happens when we get there we have no idea what we're doing there or why we're going in the first place.

And now, because the game resets to before the final battle for all the postgame things, I feel like all the effort I put into the final couple hours was wasted, if nothing's really changed now that I can go back.

Versus 13 better be fucking incredible.

[Plow]

Still had no idea what was going on in the game until the very,very end, because

actually skipped cut scenes

Fixed that up for ya.

I felt extremely isolated the entire game, which I get is what the l'Cie were feeling but don't put your audience through that.

Excuse me? Don't make your audience actually feel what the characters in a story feel?

Sorry, you seem to have missed the entire point of Final Fantasy. (let alone storytelling in general)

[Raen Ryong]

go play halo

[Xno Kappa]

I'm amazed how some* people are so confused over the story-line in FF13. It was one of the most well-written and solid story-line in the entire series, not to mention it was extremely simple compared to it's predecessors.

I guess not enough amnesiac, schizophrenic, inexplicable jenova plot-device, time-jumping, "sup I'm Ultimecia/Kuya we'll be fighting today," and Vaan/Ashe who? moments.

[Kyo]

go play halo

Hiroshima this time?

[Raen Ryong]

Idk, I've just wanted to say that for ages

[Kyo]

Well sometimes truth bombs sting.

[Saga]

Fixed that up for ya.



Excuse me? Don't make your audience actually feel what the characters in a story feel?

Sorry, you seem to have missed the entire point of Final Fantasy. (let alone storytelling in general)

Really? You think making the audience feel isolated for the entire game is a positive thing? I think you missed the point of evoking a range of emotions, not just negative ones, throughout an entire story. Can't have the payoff and the only variation in emotion or tone be at the very end of a 30-hour ordeal.

The story was campy and poorly written, I'm pretty surprised how low of a standard some people have for good writing.

[dejet]

how are people still fighting over not understanding this? Its not that hard to follow. Read and watch and you will get everything. God its been said 100 times.

[Raen Ryong]

Really? You think making the audience feel isolated for the entire game is a positive thing? I think you missed the point of evoking a range of emotions, not just negative ones, throughout an entire story. Can't have the payoff and the only variation in emotion or tone be at the very end of a 30-hour ordeal.

The story was campy and poorly written, I'm pretty surprised how low of a standard some people have for good writing.

If you didn't experience any other emotion when playing, idk what to say <_< the Serah scenes/Chapter 7 as a whole is a whole range of emotions/Bart in Chapter 9/Fifth Ark (hopelessness)/When you first arrive on Gran Pulse etc... I found the game amazing in that sense all of the way through. I could really empathise with the characters.

[Plow]

Really? You think making the audience feel isolated for the entire game is a positive thing? I think you missed the point of evoking a range of emotions, not just negative ones, throughout an entire story. Can't have the payoff and the only variation in emotion or tone be at the very end of a 30-hour ordeal.

The story was campy and poorly written, I'm pretty surprised how low of a standard some people have for good writing.

Isolated with just your crew of friends from completely random backgrounds that are with you to the end in going against pretty much the entirety of humanity, yes.

I was as disappointed as they were when we got to Oerba and there was nobody there. And that's *really good* storytelling.

I honestly thought the worst parts of the game were when they tried to be cheery about it when there was nothing to be cheery about. Especially Hope, yeah I hated him to start out with, but I hated him even more when they tried to make me like him.

[Saga]

Isolated with just your crew of friends from completely random backgrounds that are with you to the end in going against pretty much the entirety of humanity, yes.

I was as disappointed as they were when we got to Oerba and there was nobody there. And that's *really good* storytelling.

I honestly thought the worst parts of the game were when they tried to be cheery about it when there was nothing to be cheery about. Especially Hope, yeah I hated him to start out with, but I hated him even more when they tried to make me like him.

Alright, I'll agree with you that making me feel disappointed on some occasions was at least effective story telling, but despite the company I had from the five other characters in the game, it just felt lonely. I know I'm boo-hooing, but the fact is everybody in the game hates you, and the only positive interaction you have with other humans outside of your crew is NORA, who only comes up twice. I really, really liked the scene near the end though where they came back, that was great to see.

I don't know, I can't pinpoint it, I just felt disappointed at the end. I also didn't think that the absence of towns or a world map of sorts was going a downer but I guess it got to me.

So I guess my argument is: good, make me feel isolated since that makes for effective storytelling, but put me through a range of emotions that don't feel forced. There were a handful of times in the game I genuinely felt something other than isolation: Lightning's flashbacks, Oerba, NORA at the end, and the ending with Dajh and Serah.

You said you felt forced to like Hope by the end, but I liked him after he confronted Snow and almost fell off that tall building and I never had a problem with him since. I felt like I was being forced to feel something by all the flashbacks with Snow and Serah, the one with Vanille and Serah, some of the scenes with Fang and Vanille. Again, the writing was so sappy/campy in some of those parts that I honestly didn't care about them.

Lost Odyssey had fantastic writing, Last Remnant had fantastic writing, FFXIII had great writing in some parts, and was a big letdown in others. Just how I feel.

[Xno Kappa]

I really don't understand what you're looking for as far as story is concerned. Hard to remember Last Remnant even had a story as generic as it was and Lost Odyssey itself had horrible story-telling. Lost Odyssey being the bigger disappointment of the two.

The problem I had with LO was that the dream portions should have been stream-lined into the main game. They should have been there to supplement the main story and it's characters, not create some kind of side-collection of short stories which could have been sold as a separate novel and be none the wiser. I felt FFXIII and it's Datalog did an awesome job balancing the two.

The pacing of the first disk for LO was awesome and really exposed the vulnerabilities of immortality, after that though everything fell apart into typical "insert rpg cliche' here," something the dreams could have helped tremendously yet were never fully utilized. It doesn't make any sense in my opinion, why hire a talented writer like Kiyoshi Shigematsu to pen a beautiful thousand years of history prior to the game and then ultimately fall back onto Sakaguchi's typical over-abused amnesia crutch of a story for the main plot? Might as well had made Jansen the main character as he was infinitely more interesting then any of the characters in the game whom you forget were immortals outside the dream stories.

/rant off on my disappointment with Lost Odyssey.

Anyways, this is another area in which FFXIII excelled when dealing with it's characters. Any of the individuals you played with had just as an important role or motivation as the next and weren't just merely fodder for game-play sake. Hope being the number one example in this case, a person I couldn't stand in the beginning but as time passes you see him grow and mature into someone reputable. This in turn affecting Lightning's character in showing the error of her ways which in turn affects other characters. No pun intended but the synergy and interaction between the characters was bar none the best in the franchise. Something a lot of RPG's seem to lack, coughFFXIIcough, where you forget some characters even exist or just flat out wonder why they're there.

[Despain]

Just beat it, so disappointed. There was nothing truly "epic" about the story, no real villian until the very end. Bathandelus was fucking lame, you can barely even call him a villain. I felt extremely isolated the entire game, which I get is what the l'Cie were feeling but don't put your audience through that. This was the only FF where I've actually skipped cut scenes, because every single one boiled down to:

Person A: "We have to do WHAT?!"

Person B: "There's no point in arguing, we just have to believe we can do it!"

Person A: "No way! we can't do THAT!"

Person C: "Hey, Person B is right! Just believe!"

Person A: "Oh, all right...but I won't be happy about it!"

Persons D, E, and F: :laughter:

Still had no idea what was going on in the game until the very,very end, because everything until the Orphan fight was one giant ambiguous goal. There was literally nothing driving the story except going to place B because we were told to go there, and since we won't know what happens when we get there we have no idea what we're doing there or why we're going in the first place.

And now, because the game resets to before the final battle for all the postgame things, I feel like all the effort I put into the final couple hours was wasted, if nothing's really changed now that I can go back.

Versus 13 better be fucking incredible.

Lol.

I SKIPPED CUTSCENES BUT I DON'T UNDERSTAND THE STORY SO THIS GAME SUCKS LOL

[Plow]

Yeah, I'm wondering if you skipped the major moments with Sazh and Van, or didn't get the implications that Lightning was blaming everything on Snow while slowly realizing the whole time it had been her being the bad guy and he was the one that was "right," etc.

Yeah, it was a lonely game.

The original main character lost her sister. Then you take over a guy that lost his fiance. Then you all get transformed into what the populace views as terrible monsters. Then you occasionally take over a guy that lost his son, and 2 "sisters" that have lost their entire family/history, and oh yeah tried to destroy the world the last time they were awake.


Even Vanille, who tried to stay as cheery and chirpy as possible the entire time, had the "don't cross this line" followed by the cudding closely for comfort moment.


I'm really not sure what you're looking for, but in general, if it's a happy story, Final Fantasy is probably not the game for you, heh.

[Kyo]

Last Remnant had a story?

What a terrible game to reference when talking about story telling.

[Cesaria]

I don't skip cutscenes, I read the additional stuff in the datalog, but the ending did descend into a bit of a holey cheese-fest... but then most Final Fantasys do get a bit plot-ropey at the end if you try to overanalyze them.

Not going to slam the game as it's probably one I've enjoyed the most in recent months but yeah - it does lose it a little bit toward the ending. I like the characters though (yes, even Hope) and it's bloody nice to have decent females who don't just drip around waiting to be bailed out by the blokes.