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I got into various arguments with people this weekend who justifiedFinal Fantasyfans hating the Xbox 360 because it apparently “ruined” Square Enix’s latest hundred-hour monstrosity. Now, there’s no denying thatFinal Fantasy XIIIhas its share of problems. Ahead of our review, I can tell you that this game boasts a variety of disappointing elements. However, there are those who legitimately blame the Xbox 360 and demonize it as the heart ofXIII‘s troubles. After debating with several of these individuals, I have concluded that such people obviously know nothing about the game’s development.
There are many legitimate reasons to dislike the 360. The shoddy hardware, the Xbox Live Gold scam, Microsoft’s insistence on controlling and restricting as much user freedom as it can; the list goes on. But to despise the Xbox 360 because you think it ruinedFinal Fantasy XIIIis perhaps one of the stupidest, most ignorant things you can do. You are, officially, a moron.
Read on to find out why you are so stupid.
Apparently,Final Fantasy XIII‘s problems are all due to the fact that the Xbox 360 is immeasurably inferior to the PlayStation 3. According to these people, the 360 simply couldn’t handle this ultimate version ofXIIIthat doesn’t exist, and because of the 360’s weakness, Square Enix scaled back its game, made it more linear, and spread the development thin in order to cater for both systems.
What bullshit.
It’s hard to know where to begin in tearing this fallacy apart, but let’s start with Square Enix itself, and its multiple assurances that the PS3 version was not gimped to make it run on an Xbox 360. Square Enix has explained, time and time again, that the PlayStation 3 version of the game was developed first, andthenit was ported to the Xbox 360. Apparently, people think Square Enix has been lying through its teeth the whole time, but we can certainly see evidence that the PS3 version was always intended to be the lead version. Just compare the two games.Final Fantasy XIIIlooks better on the PS3, by all accounts, and I’d find it nearly impossible to say that the graphics were scaled back at all. The PS3 version ofFinal Fantasy XIIIis one of the most beautiful games I have ever seen, if not the most amazing looking console game to date. I’d even put it ahead ofUncharted 2in terms of how huge and beautiful it looks.
You can’t really argue that you’re getting a bum deal, visually, whenXIIIis the most gorgeous looking game on the home console market. What more do you want? It’s hard to imagineFinal Fantasy XIIIlooking better, and if you’re seriously crying because itdoesn’tlook better, then you are the dictionary definition of a spoiled brat. You’re like somebody who got a golden elephant encrusted with fine jewels for Christmas, and threw it out because he thought its crystal testicles weren’t round enough.
A fair few believe that the gameplay itself was affected by the Xbox 360, and again I have to call foul on this ridiculous assumption. Bear in mind thatFinal Fantasy XIIIwas officially announced in 2006, and obviously development had started on the game much sooner than the announcement. In fact, the game was originally in development for the PlayStation 2. The Xbox 360 version was announced in 2008, two years after the game was announced and a whole generation apart from when development had begun.
Now, looking at when development onXIIIstarted and when it was revealed for the Xbox 360, can youhonestlybelieve that the very fundamentals of the game werenotalready in place before the 360 version was decided? The game had been developed for PS3 long, long before it was finally planned for the Xbox 360, so if you think that the game wasn’t already going to be linear and restricted before coming to 360, you’re a fucking tool.
Square Enix itself hasalreadyrevealed why the game is so tight and linear, and that’s because of the challenges of making a game in high-definition. The budget foranyHD current-gen game is already astronomical, let alone an HD current-gen RPG intended to last atleastthirty hours. Director Yoshinori Kitase has already stated in the past that making a high-definition RPG is incredibly difficult, and that this was the reason for much of the content being scrapped. If you look at it that way, you could almost blame thePS3forXIII‘s limitations. If the PS3 wasn’t so damngood, Square Enix wouldn’t have had to make such a great looking game and sink so much time and money into the graphics, concentrating instead on making a bigger and better title.
Of course, that’s the real crux of the issue. It’s not really the PS3orthe Xbox 360’s fault. The blame lies squarely at the feet of Square Enix itself. It was Square Enix that decidedFinal Fantasy XIIIhad to have a brand new battle system that mostly plays itself. It was Square Enix that decided to focus on graphics above everything else, putting visuals on a pedestal and worrying about gameplay and story as a distant second and third. It was Square Enix that insisted on making the White Engine, having to build a whole new game engine from the ground up before it could get to work onXIIIitself. Finally, it was Square Enix that developed, andcontinuesto develop, too many games at once, spreading its teams too thin because it wants to make three differentFinal Fantasy XIIItitles, as well asFinal Fantasy XIV, all at the same time.
You want to blame something forFinal Fantasy XIII‘s issues, then you blame the people who were responsible. You blame Square Enix. Don’t go making a boogie man out of a hunk of plastic and wires because you’re too lazy and unimaginative to actually considerwhythe game has its problems. Square Enix made all the decisions here. It decided how to developXIII,and it decided what systems to develop it for. Making a villain of a single game console, simply for existing, because your game isn’t everything you thought it could be is fucking ridiculous, and you really are stupid if you sincerely believe that the 360 is the cause ofXIII‘s woes. There are so many other factors to consider than “Wah wah the Xbox 360 is ten billion times worse than the PS3 which I have mistaken for some sort of processing God” and it’s dismaying to see other, considerably more troublesome issues getting ignored.
Focusing on graphics over gameplay is a serious problem this generation, and that problem is exacerbated by so-calledFinal Fantasyfans demanding better visuals and then complaining when the game lacks a massive overworld. The way Square Enix madeFinal Fantasy XIIIwas simply wrong, and the game’s biggest faults aren’t even technical ones. It’s not the Xbox 360’s fault thatXIII‘s plot is borderline incomprehensible, that the characters are boring at best and annoying at worst, or that the battle system is so complicated and convoluted that most of the control is wrested from the player so they can concentrate on making sure nobody’s HP drops below 0. These are all design issues, not hardware restrictions.
And if futureFinal Fantasygames are just as bad, you won’t even be able to blame Square Enix anymore. You’ll have nobody to blame but yourself. Yourself, because you chose to focus all your criticism on a machine that was completely unrelated to the root of XIII’s flaws. Yourself, because instead of letting Square Enix know that it fucked up, you only criticize the studio for “betraying the PS3” or being “paid off by Microsoft.” Yourself, because you deflected the issue away from Square Enix’s developers and onto something that really had no influence whatsoever.
So remember, when the next traditionalFinal Fantasyis shit, don’t boo the PS3 or the Xbox 360. Boo your stupid fucking self.
