A Trip Down Memory Lane: Revisiting Final Fantasy 13

Welcome, weebs, to Animated Observations

I mentioned it in a blog post a while back, but I recently started streaming for fun. Its been a great experience so far, and since I have a lot of friends and acquaintances who also stream I have been getting a lot of positive support. So far its been a lot of “Hearthstone” and “Slay the Spire,” which has been great because card games are, like, one of my favorite genres. However, since I have the opportunity anyway, I wanted to carve out some time to re-visit one of my favorite games of all time: FF13

As of the release of this post, I am only about 2 hours in or so, which means I have not gotten past the intro section. But honestly, everything about the game is still almost as good as I remember.

For starters, apart from the spotty details on the hands and certain facial features, the animation and character designs in the game are f**king amazing. Granted, most JRPGs and anime adjacent media tends to make their main characters stand out. However, it feels like the designs actually match the world, and utilize some really fun color palettes as well. Lighting’s Military’s uniform in particular, while not actually looking the most militaristic, is still unique enough to be noteworthy.

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Speaking of characters, I absolutely adore most of the ones in this game. Even as far as “Final Fantasy” games go, there are some really cool storylines that are tied together amazingly with the use of foreshadowing and flashbacks, which is saying something consider how lazy writers can often get using these techniques. The best is probably the one between Vanille and Kazh, but I won’t say too much more so that I don’t spoil anything. The only character that comes across as kind of lame is Hope, as it feels like he does not do a whole lot for the majority of the game, since he mostly spends his time just following everyone else around.

It is hard to talk about the plot of the game without giving too much away, but a lot of the game is focused on Lightning and the gang taking down the Fal’cie, and a being that corrupts human beings, turning them into “dangerous” L’cie. At first it can feel like a pretty generic action/adventure style game, but it very quickly become a story about questioning government narratives, and fighting back against a fascist state, which I can definitely appreciate a lot more now.

Given that is has been a long time since I have made it all the way through, its hard to give the game a fair and accurate review. This means that, in all likelihood, I will be revisiting it after I finish my playthrough to give a more detailed and honest evaluation.

If you would like to join me on my continuing journey through the game, I will be live every Thursday, starting somewhere around 8-10 EST on my Twitch going for a few hours at a time. If you just want to come say hi, though, that is totally fine as well.

Did you guys ever play FF13? How did you feel about it? Let me know in the comments below.

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