LogFAQs > #886931357

I'm not just trying to be over-the-top in hating FFX. I just finished beating FF13 and my immediate thought was "this is FFX if I LIKED FFX." That's not to say that FF13 is amazing or that FFX is worse in EVERY aspect, but neither of those statements are true. I will fully admit that FF13 sucks at mini-games. It's just the missions and there's no blitzball or the various card games from previous FFs. I'll also admit that FF13 does poorly with its secondary characters, whereas FFX is great with people like Seymour and Jecht, or even minor characters like O'Aka.

But anyway, my comparison started with my feelings on Hope and Tidus. Both are objectively whiny and obnoxious, yet Hope works as character for me and Tidus does not. So I started trying to think of why, because I SHOULD hate Hope given all my prior opinions on whiny characters and kid characters. And it comes down to Hope being the least important character of the PCs. Like, he's twice-removed from the main characters of the game. As such, his whininess actually feels real and doesn't feel overplayed or overpushed. He's a fourteen-year-old kid who is going through the worst week of his life, up to and including the death of his moth. So being whiny and upset makes sense, and this all culminates in him trying to kill Snow (who he blames for his mother's death), only to fail and get over his desire for revenge. Yeah, he's ignored for most of the game after that, but that makes sense too, given the disconnect he has from the rest of the plot.

Compared that to Tidus, who I HATE. Tidus is basically what would happen if you took Hope's whining and mashed that up with Snow's cocky, douchey overconfidence. It creates the fucking Ulti of Final Fantasy (hence my Beta comment). Hope works on his own because his whining makes sense with his story. Snow's overconfidence works in the context of his story. Tidus merging those two diametrically opposed personalities is fucking OBNOXIOUS. So yeah, Tidus is one of the biggest flaws for me in FFX, and FFXIII fixes that by not only splitting the Tidus character into two separate characters whose personalities work in the context of the game, but also giving us a main character (Lightning) who feels more properly suited to the role.

From there, we kinda get to comparisons between the rest of the cast. I HATE Wakka. HATE Wakka. I find him obnoxious and racist semi-comic relief. You know who does the whole semi-comic relief character better? Sazh. I HATE Yuna. Despite the game being her fucking journey and her fucking story, she feels SO fucking meek and pathetic (though again, part of this is the fact that an obnoxious personality like Tidus' overpowers her.) You know who does the whole Yuna journey storyline BETTER than Yuna did? FANG. Lightning does the crotchety, hard-ass role better than Lulu (and actually makes sense in the context of her universe...seriously, why the fuck is Lulu a goth when she lives on a tropical fucking island?) Vanille is better than Rikku, but I can at least accept a difference of opinion there. And there's no real comparison to Auron or Kimahri, but they don't really bother me regardless.

The overarching story is very similar, right up to the ending, but I think FF13 nails that first half much better than FF10 does because it's much more character-based, and again, I don't care much for the characters in FF10. The linearity is similar, but I like the concept behind Gran Pulse at least opening things up a little more than FFX really did. The crystarrium is just an improved sphere grid. The battle system...okay, I'll give the nod to FFX there, because I hate not control my secondary party members. But the overworld system getting rid of random battles is definitely great (huge part of why I like FF12.)

tl;dr the FLAWS in FFX I think are fixed in FF13. The things FFX does right, it still does right. But FF13 definitely fixes things and is the more enjoyable game to me.
---

Touch fuzzy. Get fuzzier.
Inviso